Transparency & Corruption, Early Childhood Education and Care, Low pay/minimum wages, Moldova, Croatia, Bulgaria
Confederation continues campaign on pay
On 30 November, with a demonstration outside parliament, the CITUB trade union confederation maintained its campaign on pay, minimum wages and public sector salaries. The campaign began in September and included a joint demonstration with the Podkrepa confederation on 11 November. CITUB is calling for higher pay for all workers in response to the cost-of-living crisis and it wants the government budget for 2023 to allow for a pay increase for public sector workers of at least 13%. The main demands also include an increase in the national minimum wage to BGN 850 (€435) a month along with
Confederation sets out 22 demands for economic and social measures
The KNSB trade union confederation has published 22 demands on a range of issues that would boost pay and welfare benefits and help address poverty and the impact of soaring energy costs. Bearing in mind the discussions at European level about a minimum wage that should be at least 50% of the average wage and 60% of the median wage, the KNSB is looking for the minimum wage to rise to €700 as soon as possible and to €764 by the beginning of 2022. The confederation is also calling for wage rises across the economy and specifically for public sector workers an increase of at least 12.5% in 2022.
Tripartite agreement includes measures on pay in health and care
Trade unions, employers and the government have signed a major agreement which sets out a range of measures for the coming two years. These cover green and energy issues as well as plans to increase unemployment benefit and pensions. Health workers dealing with COVID-19 will see a 30% increase on pay for the period August-December this year, around 6000 employees will benefit. There is also additional funding for municipalities to ensure that the collective agreement covering childcare nurses is fully implemented. This will particularly affect workers in small towns guaranteeing that they
Childcare workers mobilise over pension age increase
The SOMK education, culture and media union organised demonstrations in Zagreb and Rijeka to protest against plans to raise the retirement age for childcare workers from 65 to 67. The union argues that the change fails to recognise the nature of work in the sector and the increasing mental and physical demands made on childcare workers. EPSU sent a message of solidarity as did the BDDSz childcare workers from Hungary.
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.
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.