COVID-19, Strike, Europe

The ETUCLEX newsletter, produced by the ETUC’s legal team, provides a regular update on key legal developments across Europe and in the latest issue includes reports on the right to strike. In a long-running case involving the right to strike of civil servants in Germany, the European Court of Human Rights recently ruled that disciplinary action taken against teachers who took industrial action in 2009 and 2010 did not involve a breach of their human right to freedom of association. The Court found that the particular circumstances of civil servants in Germany in relation to their pay and

The ETUC is calling on its member organisations to press their national governments to provide feedback to the Swedish Presidency on the proposed Single Market Emergency Instrument (SMEI) by 20 January. The ETUC argues that the SMEI must respect fundamental trade union rights and the autonomy of the social partners and that strike action must never be considered as a crisis or be restricted by emergency measures whether under the SMEI or otherwise. Affiliates are urged to get their national governments to push for stronger safeguards for social, workers’ and trade union rights to be included

The Eurofound research agency has published a new study that argues that social dialogue and collective bargaining were essential in finding solutions to the challenges in the hospital sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. It notes that this was also true in countries where these structures are not so strong – including Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia and Malta – and not just those where this a long-standing tradition of cooperation between trade unions and employers. The study found that negotiations were crucial for, among other issues, agreeing the changes to work organisation required to

New reports from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and Eurofound research agency analyse developments in collective bargaining in the light of the pandemic and other important drivers of change. The ILO report provides an overview of developments in collective bargaining during the pandemic, focusing on seven countries – Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Belgium. The report argues that the role of strong sectoral collective bargaining institutions was particularly important, allowing sectoral actors to negotiate specific responses considering the impact and

Members of the SUEPO trade union at the European Patent Office (EPO) have voted for industrial action, including a “work to rule”, “go slow” and a strike on 22 March. The union is calling for the restoration of fundamental rights at the EPO and the suspension or reversal of major reforms that have been detrimental to working conditions and wellbeing of staff. There have been longstanding problems with asserting trade union rights at the EPO with a former director intervening in the trade union’s internal affairs and blocking the right to strike. The International Labour Organisation has ruled

The Eurofound research agency has published an analysis of collective labour disputes. It found that collective bargaining was the context for over a third of disputes, with grievances over company-level policies making up another quarter and grievances over public policy accounting for a further 18%. More specifically, problems over pay accounted for over 40% of disputes, employment problems for 20%, other aspects of working conditions for 16%. In a period when the pandemic raised serious problems in terms of safety and staffing it wasn’t surprising that health and social care was among the

Forty-eight countries are now covered in EPSU’s library of factsheets on the right to strike. Information on Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Switzerland, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan was recently added to the EPSU website. Each factsheet sets out the main legal provisions covering strike action, including who can call a strike, procedural requirements and any limitations on the right to take action. There is also a section on international case law. The factsheets were launched jointly with the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) in 2019 with the ETUI coordinating production of factsheets on 34

The European Commission’s annual review of Employment and Social Developments in Europe outlines some of the key effects of the pandemic on jobs, employment conditions and social dialogue. It identified uneven regional impacts with the more resilient regions sharing characteristics such as high regional productivity, high level of skilled population levels, big investment in research and development, quality local public institutions and solid digital infrastructure. The impact on national social dialogue and collective bargaining varied with countries with strong social dialogue institutions

A new report from the Eurofound research agency analyses the extent of labour shortages across Europe and some of the measures being taken to address them. One of the main sectors of interest is health and social care and the report highlights the risks posed by such shortages to the viability of high-quality care provision. These were seen as particularly acute in Germany and in the Nordic countries, where shortages of skilled staff have led to long waiting times for patients. They also mean high workloads for professionals, ultimately contributing to higher turnover rates and reducing the

New ETUC research reveals that safety inspections have been cut by a fifth since 2010, falling from 2.2 million annual visits to 1.7 million. Numbers fell in at least 17 countries, including in Germany where 232,000 fewer visits were made in 2018 compared to 2010 and Portugal where checks were cut in half over the same period. Over the same period the number of labour inspectors across Europe fell by more than 1000. Portugal, Malta, Cyprus, Romania and Croatia all saw inspections fall by 35%, with the average fall across the EU at 18%. The ETUC argues that the major cut in labour inspections

A new study of the impact of the pandemic in social care in eight countries reveals the problems faced by social care workers and the extent to which trade union action has helped to address issues around personal protective equipment (PPE), sick pay, working time and understaffing. There has been a shortage of PPE in all countries, but it was only in Sweden that a trade union had to take legal action for its members' right to use personal protective equipment. Increased overtime was a challenge in all countries but with split shifts being a particular problem in Sweden. The pandemic exposed

After the surge in remote working as a result of the pandemic, trade unions in Ireland, Russia and Spain have welcomed new initiatives, including legislation and collective agreements, that regulate telework. Research by the Eurofound research agency also looks into the negative and positive implications of telework for workers’ autonomy and work-life balance raising again the challenges to ensure that workers have control over their working time and underlining the importance of current discussions at European level on the right to disconnect.

EPSU joined with the ETUC and other European and global trade union organisations in a strong call for action to end violence against and harassment of women. The ETUC called for laws against workplace harassment to be updated to protect women working from home against online abuse made possible by surveillance techniques being used by employers. EPSU outlined the many ways in which the pandemic has taken a heavy toll on women not only as the backbone of health and social care provision across Europe but also often facing the double burden of dealing with extra childcare while working from

The latest global wage report from the International Labour Organisation reveals the main trends in pay and minimum wages, highlighting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the first half of this year. It notes a downward pressure on the level or growth rate of average wages in two thirds of the countries for which recent data are available. In other countries, including France and Italy, average wages increased, largely artificially as a reflection of the substantial job losses among lower-paid workers. The report also shows that women workers and low-paid workers generally have been