11 epsucob@NEWS June 2009

Collective bargaining and social dialogue will be the focus of several of the debates at this year’s EPSU Congress in Brussels between 8 and 11 June. Congress will debate a main resolution on collective bargaining. However, there will also an important resolution on the European social model. This highlights the urgency of campaigning to restore the priority of social rights in the face of European Court judgements in the Viking and Laval cases as well as the need for recasting the Posted Workers Directive to prevent the Courts interpreting the Directive as providing only minimum standards as

EPSU vice president and president of Finnish public services union JHL, Tuire Santamäki-Vuori will be introducing the debate on collective bargaining on Tuesday 9 June. The resolution highlights the need to protect and strengthen collective bargaining rights and structures and work to achieve real increases in pay and improvements in the pay and conditions of members. It re-affirms EPSU’s commitment to support its affiliates in ending the scandal of low pay across many parts of the public services, not just through collective bargaining but also by campaigning for higher legal minimum wages

The EPSU website has a section covering collective bargaining with seven areas of information. The epsucob@ network explains the background to setting up the network of contacts in 2003 in order to provide an effective means of exchanging and distributing information. Some of the main policies discussed at past collective bargaining conferences are set out in section on policies, while other documents produced for conferences can be found in the meeting documents section or that for past meetings and conferences. We have now produced four annual reports on collective bargaining and these are

Planned strike action by public sector workers was called off when negotiations were finally concluded at 5am on 4 June. Unions were pleased with the outcome as it means that there are no major changes to the pensions arrangements in the public sector. Pay negotiations were also concluded with local government workers set to get 3.1% with a minimum increase of 9000 NOK a year. [Read more at > Fagforbundet (NO)-> http://www.frifagbevegelse.no/fagbladet/article4374683.ece] [And at > NTL (NO)-> http://www.ntl.no/portal/page/portal/PG_NTL_NO/ALLE_2008/Artikkelside?p_d_i=-1&p_d_c=&p_d_v=11832&p_d_i

Public services union Abvakabo has agreed a 10-month deal for the energy sector with a basic pay increase of 1.3%. The current two-year agreement expires on 30 June and the new agreement will only run from 1 July to 30 April 2010. It is seen as a transitional agreement that covers the current difficult economic circumstances and is in line with the national social accord agreed by the confederations. There will also be a payment worth 0.75% of salary on 1 January 2010 which is part of a new scheme allowing workers the choice of having additional pay or more time off. Other elements in the deal

Public services union ver.di is continuing is campaign of industrial action in support of its demands for a collective agreement covering health issues for works in childcare and social care. The union argues that increased responsibilities and workloads need to be addressed and that a negotiated agreement would lead to improved health and wellbeing for workers and better services to children and parents. In the latest development 11,000 workers in the North-Rhine Wesfalia region and in Hamburg joined the strike. Ver.di says that the VKA local government employers’ organisation has yet to make

The four energy sector federations made a joint statement on 28 May setting out their main demands and attacking employers in the energy sector (IEG) for failing to re-open negotiations on the 2009 pay increase and for pulling out of talks about a new job classification system that started in 2007. The CGT, FO, CFDT and CFTC want to negotiate an overall salary increase for all workers in the sector but the employers have implemented an increase of only 0.3% this year. The unions are critical of the employers’ narrow focus on inflation and argue that a much more substantial increase should be

The health federations of the UGT and CCOO trade union organisations have called on health minister Trinidad Jimenez to convene the social dialogue forum for the sector. The unions argue that there are vital human resources issues, including changing demands for different professions, that need to be tackled and that these cannot be adequately resolved without proper consultation with the trade unions. The unions’ call came as the minister announced a meeting of the inter-territorial council for the national health service. The unions say the minister should play more of a role in improving

At its mid-term conference in Paris on 27 May the ETUC agreed to write to the Council of Ministers to ask immediate action to introduce a social protocol to protect fundamental social rights. The ETUC demand is part of its campaign in response to the threat to social dialogue and collective bargaining from the European Court judgements of Viking, Laval, Rüffert and Luxembourg. The social protocol would re-establish a balance between trade union rights and internal market rules and economic freedoms. [Read more at > ETUC (EN)-> http://www.etuc.org/a/6222] [And in French at > CES-> http://www