A report from the EIRO industrial relations observatory provides some background to the strike action by public and private sector unions last December. The government wants to end civil servant status in the utilities and other public services and to intervene in collective bargaining in the sector. A series of privatisations are planned and more generally unions are campaigning over the high cost of living, rising unemployment and changes to working time regulations.
Read more at >EIRO
Wide range of reasons behind strike action
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Pay review finds wide range of increases
The annual review of pay developments by the EIRO industrial relations observatory found national average nominal pay increases ranging from 1.7% in France to 32.3% in Latvia in 2007. Taking account of inflation, real increases ranged from -3.5% in Slovenia to 18.3% in Latvia with inflation outstripping pay in 12 countries in 2007. The EIRO report also looks at pay increases in the civil service and indicates that the average nominal increase across the EU 27 of 6.2% in 2007 is higher than the 4.1% average recorded in 2006. The highest nominal increases for civil servants in 2007 were 42.2% in
Public administration shows wide range in flexible working
This report on flexible working hours by the European statistics agency, Eurostat, found that on average in the EU-25, the proportion of women employed in public administration with some flexibility over working hours was larger - at almost 40% - than in other sectors of economic activity. It was especially large in Denmark, Germany and Finland, at around 75% or more. In many countries, however - Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Hungary, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta as well as Romania - very few women (under 5%) had flexibility over hours of work in this sector. [Read more at > Eurostat (EN, FR
Confederation co-ordinates range of action around collective bargaining
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