Strike threat brings government to negotiating table

A threat of legal action and major demonstration by the YOL-İŞ construction union seems to have generated a reaction from the government. The union planned to mount a legal challenge against the Ministries of Transport and Finance over their failure to abide by a Supreme Court ruling dating from 2011. The Court said that 8761 union members had the right to be directly employed by the General Directorate of Turkish Highways from the first day of their employment rather than via a subcontractor. In advance of the union's demonstration planned for 5 February the government initiated talks and the

The ICTU confederation has postponed a planned day of action on 30 March in order to take part in talks with government and employers about how to deal with the country’s economic and financial crisis. National negotiations broke down earlier this year, following which the government went ahead with legislation to implement a “pensions levy”. This is effectively a pay cut for all public servants and represents a reduction of 7.5% from the public sector pay bill. The ICTU has drawn up a 10-point action plan as the basis of negotiations on a strategy in response to the crisis and it has made

Strike action by workers at university hospitals in Essen and Düsseldorf in western Germany has helped push employers to the negotiating table to discuss measures to reduce workloads - a longstanding issue that the trade union ver.di is trying to address across the health and social services sectors. The union and the TdL employer organisation have finally agreed on the key points for the negotiations. These include measures to reduce the pressure on staff, future procedures to address staffing requirements and what to do when there is not enough staff, immediate measures to reduce workloads