Working together on collective bargaining
EPSU Conference on Social Dialogue and Collective Bargaining Information Project, 12-13 December 2005, ITUH, Brussels
Around 100 participants from 25 countries have helped EPSU make further progress towards co-ordinating collective bargaining policy. In key debates on low pay and outsourcing, the conference indicated how the Federation could take these issues forward through exchanging information and co-ordinated campaigning.
Proposals on a campaign around low pay will be drawn up in the New Year in the light of the conference discussion. There was a wide-ranging debate on the different challenges facing trade unions across Europe but the key message was that this was an issue where urgent action was required.
Outsourcing is a threat to collective bargaining across all EPSU’s main sectors and in a very lively exchange of views the conference recommended a number of initiatives that should be taken or further developed including revising a draft checklist focussing on the main challenges posed by outsourcing and how trade unions could respond to them.
The conference also provided an opportunity to review developments in the social dialogue and collective bargaining over the year. Maria Helena Andre, deputy general secretary of the ETUC, explained that the intersectoral dialogue was going through a very challenging period. With the employers unwilling to agree anything but minimal work programme, trade unions were finding difficult to make any progress and were being offered no support from the European Commission.
Maarten Keune from the ETUI-REHS research institute set out the main findings of the ETUC annual survey on collective bargaining. He said that economic circumstances meant that trade unions were finding it difficult to negotiate pay increases that compensated for inflation and won for workers a reasonable share of increased productivity. Nevertheless, in most countries in the survey real wages were increasing.
A similar message emerged from the review of negotiations in public services as set out in the draft EPSU annual report on collective bargaining with initial survey results indicating 70% of agreements produced increases in real terms.
The conference also discussed working time as well as having initial debates on how to develop collective bargaining policies on young workers and migrant workers which will be central to the Federation’s work in 2006.
A full report of the conference is available here.
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