22-2007 epsucob@NEWS 17 December 2007

Over 100 participants from 20 countries took part in the sixth annual EPSU collective bargaining conference. ETUC deputy general secretary Maria Helena Andre kicked of the conference with a briefing on the inter-sectoral social dialogue and the challenges facing the ETUC in securing any action from the employers. Collective bargaining expert Maarten Keune from the ETUI-REHS outlined the results of the latest ETUC collective bargaining survey and then delegates had a chance to exchange information about pay developments in the public services. Specific debates took place on age management and

The public sector national strike on 20 November appears to have had an initial positive result for the eight trade union federations involved with the promise of talks with the government on 17 December. The government has said it is willing to talk about reform of the pay system in the public sector and annual negotiations on pay beginning in autumn 2008 for an increase in 2009. The unions are looking for a pay rise from the beginning of 2008 along with compensation for the erosion of real pay in recent years, and revision of the pay structure. [Read more at > CGT (FR)->http://www

Ver.di will convene its public services collective bargaining committee on 18 and 19 of December to agree its pay claim for federal and local government workers. General secretary Frank Bsirske has made it clear that the demand will be for a significant pay rise to compensate for current inflation and for the decline in real pay in recent years. The last agreement came into effect in October 2005. It introduced a new pay structure but only included lump sum payments and no increases to pay rates over the 27 months. [Read more at > ver.di (DE)->http://www.verdi.de/nachrichten/newsArchive

The ETUC has welcomed the European Court's (ECJ) judgement in the Viking ferry case that local and national strike action can be justified in defending collective agreements. However, the judgement raises the issue of whether action is “proportionate” and the ETUC is worried that the ‘guidance' given by the ECJ to national courts on how to deal with this is quite rigid and may cause problems when applied throughout Europe to different industrial relations systems. [Read more at > ETUC (EN)->http://www.etuc.org/a/4376] [And in French > ETUC (FR)->http://www.etuc.org/a/4377] The transport

The four public service federations - FSAP-CCOO, FSP-UGT, CSI-CSIF and CIG - have signed a new collective agreement covering around 6,000 employees who work in Spain's embassies, consulates and other overseas organisations. A strike by workers in embassies in Scandanavia was the most recent action in a long-running campaign by the unions to secure proper employment conditions for these workers. In fact, it has taken 15 years to secure this agreement which mirrors the main provisions on hours, holidays and other conditions in the principle public sector framework agreement. [Read more at > FSAP

Public sector pay is due to be assessed as part of a five-year benchmarking exercise that compares public sector pay rates with those in the private sector. Public sector union IMPACT warns that following a similar assessment affecting the highest paid public servants, pensions will be taken into account when making the comparison covering all other public sector workers. The union's pension experts estimate that the cost of higher level of pensions in the public sector could be translated into a double-digit pay difference on the basis of the way the benchmarking reviewed body compared higher