On 7 July the European Commission launched a Europe-wide consultation on pensions. The Pensions Green Paper poses 14 broad questions that cover the social, economic and financial aspects of pensions systems across Europe.
Although the document does address the issue of the adequacy of pensions and the need to maintain living standards and social cohesion, the European Commission starts with assumptions about the impact of the current crisis and argues that: "The number of retired people (...)
(21 June 2010) Over 40 participants from 10 countries met in Madrid on 16-17 June to debate a number of key collective bargaining issues. Top of the agenda was the impact of the crisis with reports of how governments in Spain, Italy and Portugal in particular are cutting or freezing pay as well as cutting jobs and freezing recruitment.
The meeting was the second of three regional collective bargaining meetings that EPSU has organised this year with the financial assistance of the European (...)
EPSU Social Dialogue and Collective Bargaining Regional Conferences 2010 - Maintaining and improving decent work in the public services
Conference 2: 16-17 June 2010
Instituto Nacional De Administración Publica (INAP)
Calle de Atocha, 106, 28012 Madrid
EPSU is organising three regional conferences on collective bargaining and social dialogue during 2010. EPSU affiliates are invited to participate to continue some of the key debates from the main collective bargaining conference in December (...)
Public sector workers fight back against cuts
(20 May 2010) Faced by government plans to cut pay, pensions and public services, EPSU affiliates in Greece and Romania have taken to the streets to show their anger. Today’s general strike in Greece is the latest in a series of actions called by the ADEDY public service confederation and the GSEE private sector confederation. The unions are angry that their members are being forced to pay for a crisis that has its roots in the international (...)
(19 May 2010, Brussels)
Austerity measures risk extending the crisis
EPSU sends solidarity greetings to the hundreds of thousands of public sector workers who will be joining strikes and demonstrations in several countries over the next few weeks. The national demonstration in Romania today (19 May) will be followed by action in Greece, Portugal and Spain as EPSU affiliates challenge the imposition of pay cuts, pay freezes and cuts in jobs and pensions.
EPSU also warns that the severe (...)
(18 May 2010) While national minimum wages in the European Union (1) are mostly between 30% and 50% of average earnings, the rates in Eastern Europe outside the EU (2) vary much more widely. They range from below 10% in Kyrgyztan to over 60% in Albania and Bosnia and Hercegovina. This is one of the main findings of a new report from EPSU.
The report provides an overview of national minimum wages in the 18 countries in Eastern Europe outside of the European Union that have national minimum (...)
(29 April 2010) The ETUC and the other European social partners are involved in a project on flexicurity as part of the inter-sectoral social dialogue. Part of the project involves a questionnaire that has been sent to national trade union centres.
The ETUC explains that the main purpose of the survey is to assess the relevance of the Flexicurity concept to the national labour market framework in each country and to seek the opinion of trade union confederations on the role the social (...)
(28 April 2010) On the invitation of the Hungarian energy workers trade union (VDszSz), unions from Czech republic (ECHO), Hungary, Slovakia (ECHOZ) and Slovenia (SDE) met to consider collective bargaining developments in the energy sector.
The unions compared different collective agreements especially with regard to pay and working time an overview of which was presented by a Hungarian colleague (- read the full (...)
(14 April 2010) The ETUC’s Collective Bargaining Committee met yesterday (13 April 2010) to discuss recent developments across Europe with a particular focus on a major agreement on short-time working in the German engineering industry and the continuing conflict in the public sector in Ireland. The committee also discussed how the ETUC should react to an initiative by the Belgian parliament to get minimum wage policy discussed under the forthcoming Belgian presidency.
Collective bargaining (...)
(11 February 2010) Workers are facing a series of collective bargaining rounds in the German energy sector. The most important one concerns the negotiations for the collective agreement -
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