Sweden
(September 2016) The Kommunal municipal trade union has called for a block on all new personal assistant appointments by private care companies in the ALMEGA employers' organisation. The union is protesting over the proposal by private care companies to offer personal assistants a 0.8% pay rise, well below the 2.2% being offered in the public sector.
Half of all municipal cleaners are due to retire in the next 10 years and local government will face a recruitment crisis across a range of other occupations. Overall around a third of municipal employees are set to retire in the next decade and the JHL union has called on employers to address the issue by making employment in the sector more attractive. However, the union says that employers have failed to act quickly enough and are now talking about restricting spending rather than using the recession to up recruitment. [Read more at > Trade Union News (EN)->http://www.artto.kaapeli.fi
Protests by the the Vpod public services union, along with other staff unions at the Winterthur city council were successful in getting the council to reject a proposal to cut city workers' pay by 2%. Over 300 workers joined the demonstration before the crucial vote. The Vpod welcomed the victory but recognised that it still had work to do to challenge other cuts being proposed by the Council. [Read more at > Vpod (DE)->http://www.vpod.ch/aktuell/nachrichten/ansicht/article/erfolg-in-winterthur-lohnkuerzung-vorerst-vom-tisch.html?tx_ttnews=34&cHash=f0f58451ba17b5e3b55bec149843e55c[
