Transparency & Corruption, Low pay/minimum wages, Quality employment, Croatia, Austria, Armenia
Union movements organise protests over surge in inflation
With inflation increasing rapidly across Europe, trade union movements are mobilising to highlight the cost-of-living challenges facing workers, their families as well as pensioners and students. Latest figures show prices rising at anything from 6.5% to nearly 23% a year in Europe with further increases predicted. The CMKOS confederation in the Czech Republic is calling for a national demonstration in Prague on 5 September while the ÖGB confederation in Austria is coordinating protests around the country on 17 September. In between these two, the GSEE private sector and ADEDY public sector
Increase in minimum pay rates for childcare workers
The vida and GPA-djp trade unions have negotiated increases for minimum pay rates for workers in private childcare institutions that are not covered by collective agreements. Teachers and staff get a 1.95% while assistants will get a 2% increase. The unions are pleased that the increases are slightly above inflation and the trend in other agreements. Childminders will get a 2.5% rise and will now be entitled to an increase after every two years rather than three.
Capacity building project for the hospital sector in Central, East and Southern Europe started
On 28 March 2019 EPSU participated, together with its representatives of the two national affiliates from Romania, Sanitas, and Croatia, HSSMS-MT, in the kick-off meeting of the joint HOSPEEM-EPSU project focusing on strengthening social dialogue in the hospital sector that will run in 2019 and 2020.
Unions set out key negotiating demands in private healthcare
The GPA-djp and vida services unions have set out their list of demands in negotiations covering 100000 workers in the private healthcare sector. Along with a 6% pay rise (with minimum increase of EUR 150 to benefit the lower paid) the unions also want to see a reduction in hours to a standard 35-hour week without loss of pay and with additional jobs to maintain services. Other key demands include: avoiding split shifts, a sixth week of leave for all workers, earlier service to be taken into account, better pay for trainees and apprentices, part-time work for older workers and implementation
Union calls for national care standards and action on pay
The GPA-djp private services union has underlined the need for action in the care sector to address the quality and quantity of services and the pay and conditions of care workers, three quarters of whom are women. With demand increasing, particularly as a result of the ageing population, the union wants to see the federal government take responsibility to introduce national standards of care to end the variation between the regions and to increase funding to the sector to help address low pay and the widespread use of part-time work.
Health workers call for higher pay to stop emigration
On 12 May healthworkers in Sofia and Zagreb demonstrated over poor pay and working conditions and the crisis of understaffing. 5000 nurses, medical professionals, midwives and lab technicians joined a demonstration outside the Council of Ministers in Sofia demanding a 1500 Lev (EUR 765) minimum wage for health workers as a step towards stemming the flow of health workers out of the country. In Zagreb the call was also for improved pay and working conditions and in particular the respect for collective agreements in relation to overtime pay.
Boost for lower paid in health and social care deal
After the sixth round of negotiations, the vida and GPA-djp service unions agreed a deal for 100000 workers in the private health and social care sector. There will be a 2.5% pay increase dated from 1 February but with a EUR 48 per month minimum increase. This will mean more than 3% for the lowest paid workers. There will also be specific provisions for care assistants, special care assistants and qualified nurses who will see additional increases ranging from EUR 10 to EUR 50 a month in both 2018 and 2019. Although the unions did not achieve a reduction in weekly working hours they said that
Minimum wage for childcare workers up by 3%
Private childcare workers saw a 3% increase in the sector minimum wage from 1 January. The increase was negotiated by the vida and GPA-djp service trade unions with the Federal Arbitration Office. The increase takes the lowest wage level above EUR 1500 for the first time, reaching EUR 1514. There is also a provision to ensure that special payments continue to be fully paid in cases of long-term sickness or accidents at work. The unions are pleased that this is a good deal for the 10000 workers in the sector, the vast majority of whom are women.
Unions and employers focus on funding for care sector
The GPA-djp and vida private service trade unions met with the private care employers' organisation (SWÖ) to highlight the major staffing challenge facing the sector and the urgent need for additional funding to cover better pay and conditions to increase recruitment to the sector. The unions underlined the impact of serious staff shortages that are leading to increased workloads, burnout and stress for many care workers. They want to see legally enforceable staffing levels, that set minimum standards both in terms of numbers of staff with the appropriate qualifications.
East-West pay convergence stalls
Bulgaria Croatia Czech Republic Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Romania Slovak Republic Slovenia
An analysis by the European Trade Union Institute shows that wage convergence between East and West in Europe was steady up until 2008. However, since then the trend has either stalled or gone into reverse. Taking national average pay as a percentage of the average across the pre-2004 EU15, Croatia and Hungary show the largest increase in the pay gap since 2008. There were also increases in Slovenia, Czech Republic, Poland and Romania.Most progress was made in Bulgaria but from a very low level (11.8%) to 17.7%, still less than a fifth of average pay in the West.