12-2007 epsucob@NEWS 27 June 2007

Following a vote in the European Parliament, the ETUC has attacked the latest version of the directive on the portability of pension rights for being much weaker than the original version. The ETUC points out that the directive no longer contains any provision covering transfer of entitlement and its minimum standards for vesting rights (five years rather than two) and age of pension scheme membership (25 rather than 21) are too high, excluding many workers from being covered by supplementary schemes. [Read more at > ETUC (EN)->http://www.etuc.org/a/3748] [And at > ETUC (FR)->http://www.etuc

Eurostat has published its annual survey of the statutory minimum wages in the 20 European countries that have legal minima. It gives details of the rates in local currencies and by purchasing power parities. The countries break down into four groups in terms of the minimum rates as percentage of average earnings - less than 35%: Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Slovakia; 36%-41%: United Kingdom, Hungary, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Spain and Portugal; 45%-46% Slovenia and the Netherlands; and over 49%: Bulgaria, Malta, Luxembourg and Ireland. [Read more at > Eurostat (EN, FR, DE)->http

National agreements negotiated in recent years (Sustaining Progress and Towards 2016) include clauses requiring consultation over any public sector employers' plans to outsource work or use agency staff. The public service union IMPACT has won a Labour Court judgement stating that managers at University College Hospital Galway should have consulted over the proposal to use agency staff for a range of clerical and administrative jobs. The union points out that the agency workers are doing the same job as permanent staff but for less pay. The Court has required the hospital to take immediate

Civil servants are being balloted over the introduction of a new pension scheme. Existing pension scheme members can retain their current arrangements including the right to retire at 60. New starters will have 65 as normal pension age and a pension scheme based on career average salary rather than final salary. However, pension entitlement will build up more quickly each year. There will also be a new right to work and draw pension at the same time. The leadership of the PCS union is recommending acceptance of the new arrangements. [Read more at > PCS (EN)->http://www.pcs.org.uk/Templates

The ver.di services union has ended the strike in the Deutsche Telekom company following a compromise over the company's plans for outsourcing of 50,000 jobs. Although the outsourcing to three new companies will go ahead the employees affected will not suffer the level of pay cuts initially sought by the company. However, there will be a 6.5% cut in pay and increase in weekly hours from 34 to 38. At the same time there is a commitment to reduce outsourcing and to increase training. The company has agreed that there will be no redundancies at least until 2012. [Read more at > ver.di (DE)->http

The FSAP-CCOO public service federation has called on civil servants and employees of the foreign office in embassies around the world to take strike action in protest at the government's failure to confirm that the 6,000 workers are at least covered by the basic statute that covers all public sector workers. The union says that the government has not honoured promises made at the last election and that the workers are in an ambiguous position in terms of their employment conditions. The union has also criticised the pressure faced by some embassy staff not to go on strike. [Read more at >