December 2012: EPSU Collective Bargaining Conference Report

EPSU general secretary Carola Fischbach-Pyttel opened the conference referring to the recent framework agreement negotiated in the European sectoral social dialogue committee for central government administrations. She also reported on the cross-sectoral negotiations on working time that had been suspended but which were likely to end soon without an agreement.

Carola handed over to the conference chair for the day, Anders Hammerbäck of the Swedish union Vision. Anders noted the challenges facing public service unions across Europe and said the conference provided a valuable opportunity to exchange information and experiences and discuss strategy and tactics. He then introduced the first session and speaker, Ronald Janssen, economic advisor at the ETUC.

European economic governance and wages

Ronald explained the various elements that made up economic governance and the European semester. The main points of his presentation were:

- Imbalance in the process with narrow focus on wages in relation to competitiveness and aim to secure greater control over wage policy by European Commission and Council.

- Position of DG ECFIN made clear by recent report on labour market trends and identification of an employment friendly reform as one that “reduces the wage setting power of trade unions.”

- Evidence from the alert mechanism and country-specific recommendations on focus on wage determination.

- Indication from Commissioner Andor that there is a legal basis for the Commission to recommend changes to or end of wage indexation systems.

- Acknowledges need for common rules for economic policy and related to this common wage guidelines but question is what kind of guidelines and who decides?

- Need now to respond to recent proposal by DG Employment to set up a wage monitoring group.

There were comments and questions from colleagues from Germany, Belgium, Slovakia, the UK, Spain and Croatia. Responding, Ronald made the following points:

- Within the ETUC there was strong feeling that it should participate in the wage monitoring group (WMG) although there was some opposition and the German DGB would not support participation. The proposed meeting would include contributions from the European Central Bank and International Labour Organisation.

- Businesseurope, the main employers’ organisation had expressed opposition to the WMG on the basis that it threatened the autonomy of the social partners.

- The ETUC’s collective bargaining committee was discussing guidelines on wage bargaining, acknowledging that factors other than competitiveness are important such as preventing deflation and achieving fairness.

- In order to create a more balanced approach to economic governance there could be a profit monitoring group to examine trends and highlight cases like Spain, where corporate profits were soaring while wages and public spending were being cut.

- The European institutions were calling for greater wage flexibility and essentially lower wages at the bottom end of the pay scale in order to boost employment. This contradicted the idea of investing in training and going for more jobs of higher quality.

- The challenge was to defend collective bargaining and trade union organisation. The risk was that the European social model was being undermined and that this would weaken attempts in central and eastern Europe to strengthen collective bargaining structures.

Anders thanked Ronald for his presentation and said that while trade unions faced an ominous outlook, it was possible to respond if they stood together. He introduced the second session with speakers Richard Pond (EPSU), Damian Grimshaw (University of Manchester) and Stephen Bach (King’s College, University of London).

Austerity and collective bargaining in the public services

Pay trends

Richard Pond provided data on developments in public sector pay over a 10-year period noting in particular:

- General trend of moderation in real wage development in 20 countries.

- Only 12 of the 20 countries showed real wage growth over the period and of these only four managed to achieve a share in productivity of 50% or more..

- There was a need for caution with figures but this question of caution also needs to be applied to any data being used by European institutions.

Austerity and public sector pay

Damian Grimshaw examined a number of different elements of the impact of austerity measures on public sector pay and employment including:

- Effects of austerity varied but evidence of attempts to level down where there is any evidence of public sector “privilege” in employment conditions.

- With women making up majority of many public services there was evidence of higher impact on women and also gender dimension to other inequalities such as civil servant status, part-time and temporary work.

- Increase in outsourcing meant that procurement rules might provide important protection but there were significant variations in how these worked in different countries.

Austerity and social dialogue in the public sector

The focus of Stephen Bach’s contribution was more on social dialogue noting in particular that:

- Evidence of undermining of national industrial relations institutions;

- Wage freezes and cuts severely limiting scope for dialogue.

- Question as to permanence of the changes to social dialogue and collective bargaining;

- Comparisons of different trade union tactics at local level responding with strikes and public campaigns to support collective bargaining aims.

There were comments and questions about the three presentations from colleagues from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Bulgaria, Spain and Italy, with the main points being:

- Challenging situations in Nordic countries even if not facing the harsh austerity being applied in southern Europe.

- Attacks in many countries were not just on pay but also on employment rights, pensions and health and safety.

- Importance of having information on when and where and how such attacks were taking place and being able to respond with whatever solidarity is possible from the European level as well as from the national level.

- Need to acknowledge the dynamics of the changes taking place that in some countries are part of a profound social crisis.

- Strategy and tactics had to change in response with prospect of building broader alliances highlighting attacks on public services and link to attacks on pay and conditions of public service workers.

- One relatively bright spot was Slovakia where unions in the health sector had managed to maintain social dialogue and secure an 8% pay increase while changes to the labour code included some elements that were positive for trade unions.

Anders thanked the speakers and introduced Ramon Peñas-Casas of the Observatoire Social Européen (OSE) who had been commissioned by EPSU to analyse a survey of affiliates to evaluate the sectoral social dialogue at European level.

Evaluation of the European sectoral social dialogue

Ramon outlined the background to the survey and summarised some of the main findings as:

- Range of respondents included significant number from central and eastern Europe including several from outside the European Union.

- Significant minorities of respondents thought that the European sectoral social dialogue had made a difference at national level both in terms of working conditions and in terms of industrial relations.

- Sharps injury directive and energy road map were among reasons for positive impact while higher national standards were main reason for lack of impact.

- Lack of social dialogue or absence of employers at national level were main reasons for lack of impact.

- Over 60% thought European sectoral social dialogue was relevant to national level social dialogue although this varied between the different sectors.

- Priority issues identified were health and safety, employment policies and, surprisingly, pay.

- Unanimous “yes” to question whether EPSU should continue its commitment to the European sectoral social dialogue.

Ivana Brenkova of the OSZSP in the Czech Republic and Jesus Gallego of the FSP-UGT in Spain reported back from the two working groups that discussed the social dialogue presentation. Among the key points that were not already clear from the presentation were:

- challenges at national level that often meant that European sectoral social dialogue didn't have an immediate impact but important to maintain because of the support they gave to colleagues trying to build social dialogue at national level; and

- importance of deepening current work in social dialogue committees rather than developing the sectoral social dialogue in new areas.

Ivan Kokolov of the Bulgarian health workers’ union and member of the EPSU executive committee took the chair on the second morning of the conference and after the report backs on the European sectoral social dialogue, the conference was again divided into working groups to discuss the co-ordination of collective bargaining at national level, outsourcing and procurement and gender equality.

Working group: Co-ordination of collective bargaining at national level

Helle Stensbak of YS in Norway summarised the main points as:

- Finland – tripartite arrangements where unions, employers and government discuss incomes policy – and further coordination between public and private sectors;

- Norway – similar arrangement where negotiations are within framework of an economic model and system currently under review by government but including trade union representatives;

- Netherlands – tradition of trade union coordination and link between public and private sectors but more challenging as government increasingly tries to sideline unions;

- Germany – no national coordination as such – some information exchanges and some coordination around legislation, such as minimum wage – but trends is for pay increases to lag behind productivity developments; and

- Sweden – example of coordination within the LO blue-collar confederation taking account of income development for different groups of workers.

Working group: Outsourcing and procurement

Milenko Nedić of AUETPS in Serbia reported that:

- It was clear from the discussion that outsourcing was a challenge facing trade unions in most countries across Europe;

- It was leading to a fragmentation of collective bargaining;

- Colleagues from Turkey and Sweden reported in particular the problems arising from very short term contracts;

- Corruption was also a problem linked to outsourcing;

- Even in countries where there was a high coverage of collective bargaining, outsourcing often involved a gradual erosion of employment conditions;

- Social rules in procurement could offer some protection and colleagues were urged to support the current lobbying around the procurement directive.

Working group: Gender equality

Christine Jakob, EPSU policy officer responsible for local and regional government as well as gender equality, provided an introduction looking at some of the main developments around equal pay and arguments around developing equal pay as a common demand.

Kalle Liivamagi of the ROTAL union in Estonia reported on the group discussion, saying that:

- national coordination of collective bargaining is key although confederations have no role in collective bargaining;

- economic crisis has wiped off equal pay from the national collective bargaining agenda in Denmark and Finland, but less so in Sweden where the wage commission does ensure sectoral cooperation;

- need to look at early awareness-raising on equal pay in the creation of “typical female jobs”, eg in care sector;

- generally there was a feeling that nationally the unions actually were lacking competence to create legal precedents in equal pay cases and they were not doing enough to tackle this;

- job classification was mentioned as issue where further exchange should be enhanced;

- proper comparative European-wide data on de-gendered wages was mentioned, and they were looking forward to an EPSU enhanced Equal Pay report; and

- EPSU Common Demand for Equal Pay was supported and seen as a symbol for awareness-raising and exchanging of good practices and keeping the issue on the agenda (as said we should put it on the agenda of the Women’s Conference in May)

Ivan thanked the rapporteurs and then welcomed Stefan Clauwaert, senior research at the ETUI who introduced a session on changes to labour law across Europe.

Trade union rights and collective bargaining

Stefan outlined the main findings from a mapping exercise of the reforms to labour laws across Europe, most of which were moving in a negative direction for trade unions with the focus very much on greater labour market flexibility. The changes included:

- Working time;

- Amendments towards more flexible conditions for atypical work;

- Redundancies rules ;

- Changes to industrial relations and collective bargaining systems;

- Lack of respect for democratic and participatory foundations and procedures in passing the reforms; and

- Destabilising monitoring and enforcement systems.

Stefan suggested that trade unions had a number of possible options to try to challenge these changes, including through the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Council of Europe. He also highlighted some other developments where trade union input would be important such as the report on collective bargaining rights being prepared in the European Parliament and the ILO survey on collective bargaining in the public services.

Ivan thanked Stefan for his presentation and asked Richard Pond to introduce the final session of the conference on EPSU’s collective bargaining work.

Collective bargaining priorities for the next 18 months and preparation for the 2014 Congress

Main issues for collective bargaining work in the period up to Congress would include:

- Following European Semester responding to economic governance and impact on wage determination and collective bargaining and in relation to this monitor trends in pay bargaining in the public services ;

- Monitoring and responding to continuing impact of austerity measures;

- Continue to follow developments in minimum wages and initiatives to protect lower paid workers;

- Monitor trends around the gender pay gap and affiliates’ collective bargaining policy in this area; and

- Follow up publication of report on social clauses in procurement
and campaign and lobby around the directive.

A report summarising the progress that had been made on the various objectives set out in the 2009 Congress resolution on collective bargaining had been circulated to participants.

It was noted that there had been progress on a number of issues but that new priorities such as economic governance and the working time consultations and negotiations had taken precedent on some of the issues raised in the resolution.

Richard said that it had not been possible to outline a draft resolution in time for the conference but said that the main themes of the resolution would include economic governance, austerity, low pay and minimum wages and equal pay. It would also include any major points arising from the evaluation of the European sectoral social dialogue.

Progress with all the different elements in the resolution from 2009 would have to be reviewed to see how best to tackle some of the policy areas that were not fully addressed.

Follow-up

A two-day economic policy seminar will take place on 20-21 February 2013 with the support of the ETUI. It will examine in detail the economic governance process and the implications for collective bargaining and wage determination. It will also look at alternative economic policies.

A one-and-a-half day collective bargaining seminar will take place on 14-15 May 2013, probably in Brussels but venue to be confirmed. It will follow up discussions from this conference and review progress with the 2014 Congress resolution on collective bargaining.

The next full collective bargaining conference will be on 16-17 December 2013.


This conference was organised with the financial support of the European Commission