Ver.di launches week of action for better pay in church organisations

Services union ver.di, along with the GEW teaching union and GKD church trade union, has negotiated a new collective agreement with the protestant church covering the Berlin, Brandenburg and Oberlausitz region. Apart from one other regional church, this is the only collective agreement negotiated between the unions and the church. Ver.di hopes that it can become the model for further collective agreements, particularly in relation to the Diakonie - the social welfare organisations run by the protestant church that employ thousands of workers. The collective agreement is based on the regional

Several public sector trade union organisations are coordinating a week of action on pay in December (9-13). The unions and federations - CFDT, CFTC, CGC, CGT, FAFPT, FSU, Solidaires et UNSA - are protesting about the freezing of pay as of 1 July 2010 and the extension of this freeze until 2014. The unions say that there are major problems withe the pay system and career development while years of austerity and low or no pay increases have left around one in five public sector workers on not much more than the minimum wage. [Read more at > CGT (FR)->http://www.spterritoriaux.cgt.fr/spip.php

The ver.di services union is planning for a further stage of strike action against church employers in September. Around 250 ver.di members in several different church institutions in three different regions took strike action back in May. The union says that church bodies that provide health and social care are trying to use their special constitutional status to pay employees below the sector pay norm. In a specific cases five old people’s homes in Hannover have been sold to a religious foundation that has cut pay to run the homes at a higher profit. So far the religious authorities have