Recruitment & organising, Europe

Members of EPSU's young workers' network were active at the federation's Quality Employment conference last week, chairing debates and putting together a panel to discuss the key issues they are trying to address. Zahra Yusifli from Azerbaijan and Sven De Guise from Belgium chaired the discussions on digitalisation and low pay, while Zahra was also involved in the young workers' panel with Joe O'Connor from Ireland and Judit Zsigo from Hungary. They underlined the need for trade unions to look at how they communicated with young workers and what they were doing not just recruit them but also

The annual Benchmarking Working Europe study from the European Trade Union Institute includes a section providing the latest data on wage developments, collective bargaining, minimum wage and union density. The study notes that more positive statements about wages are coming from the European institutions with issues of fairness also raised in the European PIllar of Social Rights. However, these were not yet reflected in the Country Specific Recommendations issued last year where the focus was still on decentralisation of collective bargaining and moderation in minimum wage increases. The

EPSU’s recruitment and organising (R&O) team has arranged a webinar at 13.00 (CET) on 27 September to discuss the links between organising and collective bargaining. It will include practical examples from EPSU affiliates in Finland (JHL) and Germany (ver.di). Pertti Paajanen, JHL’s director of organisational affairs will talk about the union’s successful R&O campaigns and the interaction between recruitment and collective bargaining and industrial action. Ver.di activist Silvia Habekost will explain how the union succeeded in reaching collective agreements on staffing levels in two big public