Low pay/minimum wages, Ukraine, Switzerland

Public services union vpod/ssp has welcomed the referendum result which means that the Basel city region will implement a minimum wage of CHF 21 (EUR 19.20) per hour. The regional government will have to implement the result, including in public companies. The vpod says that the region pays some of its employees below the subsistence level, even though it supported the introduction of a minimum wage. The regional government must now start talks with the vpod’s Basel region and other social partners in order to implement the initiative quickly. The union argues that it is not just wages below

Trade unions across Europe have been sending messages of solidarity to Ukrainian unions as they step up their campaign against planned reforms of labour law. Proposed legislation would abolish the most important legal and social guarantees for workers and trade unions covering minimum wages, pay and leave for hazardous work, weekly rest periods, overtime pay and limits, restrictions on night work for women, dismissal rights and protection of workers with disabilities. It allows for more flexible contracts, including zero-hours and weakens trade union rights. A national day of action has been

Around 5000 protestors joined a demonstration on 14 November organised by the FPSU trade union confederation. The trade union demands concerned the draft Budget for 2020 and the Labour Code. Unions are concerned about changes to the law that deprive civil servants and public sector workers of rights to social protection upon dismissal and planned changes that contain discriminatory rules on the employment rights of employees and threatens their collective protection. The unions also have specific demands on minimum and living wages and pensions.

The FPU trade union confederation has rejected a call from the World Bank that there should be no further increases in the minimum wage until structural reforms have been carried out. The FPU argues strongly that a decent minimum wage is a basic right for workers and shouldn't be subordinated to the demands of international creditors. The current minimum wage is 5500 UAH a month (EUR 195) and is set to rise to 5700 UAH (EUR 200). The confederation says that the minimum should be a living wage and on this basis the target should be UAH 7700 (EUR 270).

The health conference of the vpod public service union has called for action to tackle the stress, long working hours, involuntary part-time work and low pay in the sector which is part of the persistent discrimination faced by women workers. The union wants to see a revaluation of pay of health and care jobs to recognise the arduousness and increased responsibilities of many occupations. Vpod is also calling for major improvements to work-life balance, reductions in working time, better shift planning, possibilities for retirement from 60 and provision of necessary training. The union says

On 17 October, around 20000 trade union members from both private and public sectors marched through Kyiv city centre and blocked the government quarter. The main demands of the demonstration were for investment in industry for decent jobs, raise the minimum wage to help stop emigration, not to increase utilities prices, for the state budget to allocate the equivalent of 7% of GDP to education and 5% to healthcare, to urgently pay outstanding wages to more than 100,000 workers and to stop state’s takeover of trade union property and respect trade union rights.

The FPSU trade union confederation has called on the government to raise the minimum wage to keep it in line with calculations of a living wage. It argues that in 2017 the two-stage increase of the minimum wage to UAH 3200 (EUR 104) was positive for both the standard of living and economic growth. However, this January's increase to UAH 3723 (EUR 121) was inadequate to keep pace with the living wage which had already risen to UAH 4011 (EUR 130) and was at UAH 4213 (EUR 137) by April. According to the FPSU around 20% of workers are classified as poor and the average wage at EUR 262 is only

The FPU trade union confederation has called a demonstration outside parliament on 6 December with a number of key demands on the government. These include: setting the minimum wage at the level not lower than the real living wage (UAH 4023); setting the basic wage of a worker in the lowest pay grade at the level above the minimum wage; settling all outstanding wage arrears by the end of the year; reducing utilities prices; ensuring the right to affordable and quality health care and preventing any curtailing of existing worker and trade union rights in adopting a new Labour Code.

(May 2017) The vpod public services union has highlighted the problem of gender pay inequality across occupations, noting that lower pay in occupations dominated by women, like care, cannot be justified on a gender-neutral basis and that they are the result of specific historical developments. The union cites new research from Essen University in Germany and argues that legislation that currently requires action by employers with over 50 employees should be amended to provide for an evaluation of occupational groups.

(March 2017 ) The vpod public services union has a special network set up four years ago campaigning for better protection for migrant care workers. The union argues that the federal government is well aware of the level of exploitation of this group of workers but has failed to take any measures to regulate this area of work. Recent press reports have highlighted the situation facing care workers and the lack of legal protection.