Lithuania, Estonia

EPSU affiliate LTUSE reports that the Lithuanian government has agreed an increase to the national minimum wage next year but it will be the third time that civil servants have missed out on an increase. The minimum monthly wage will increase to 600 LTL (173,77 euros) next July. This will be the third increase since 2003 but none of these increases have applied to state workers whose minimum wage is still 430 LTL (124,54 euros) a month, this is less than a third of national average earnings in Lithuania which are 1,331,50 LTL a month (385,63 euros).

According to the EIRO industrial relations observatory employers in the health sector claim they cannot afford to pay the 2006 salary increases that were agreed as part of the two-year deal signed in 2004. Unions are worried that failure to pay the increases and the action by the employers to undermine the collective bargaining system will lead to increase emigration by healthcare workers. The 2004 agreement allowed for pay increases of 50% doctors, 56% for nurses and 43.7% for medical carers over the two-year period. [Read more at > EIRO->http://www.eiro.eurofound.eu.int/2006/02/inbrief

At the beginning of March the council of ROTAL the main public administration union passed a resolution detailing a wide range of demands on pay, conditions and collective bargaining. It criticised the government for implementing decrees on the pay of state officials and workers in state institutions without taking account of any of the ROTAL's proposed revisions. The union is also unhappy that public sector pay has failed to keep up with inflation and government proposals to cut income tax will hit the funding of state organisations. The resolution contains a list of specific demands on

The emergency and related services in Estonia - the police, prisons and fire services - are finding very difficult to recruit staff because of low pay with many workers moving abroad. According to one survey 40% of police officers left the force because of low pay. Better pay for emergency service workers and other state employees is one of a number of demands called for by the ROTAL union and supported by EPSU in a letter to the Estonian Prime Minister. [Read more at > EIRO (EN)->http://www.eiro.eurofound.eu.int/2006/05/articles/ee0605029i.html] [And at > EPSU (EN)->http://www.epsu.org/a/2216

The EIRO industrial relations observatory reports that health unions in Estonia are seeking a 30% pay increase. Figures indicate that while doctors earn around 1.5 times the average wage and nurses earnings are about the same as average earnings, care workers earn only 50% of the average wage. Health workers also have to rely on unsocial hours payments to supplement their low basic salaries. The health sector is facing a major challenge to deal with a shortage of workers as many doctors and nurses emigrate to find better paid employment. [Read more at > EIRO (EN)->http://www.eiro.eurofound.eu

Lithuanian trade unions rallied together on 10 November to protest against low wages and long working hours. The three EPSU affiliates received a very encouraging turn out, and also were endorsed by numerous messages of support from fellow national unions and international trade union federations. They called on the Lithuanian Government to recognise that as part of the package of being a successful member of the European Union, they needed to enact policy that would bring the country into line with the living standards in other parts of the EU. In particular the Unions demanded that as a

A strike planned for 22 January has been postponed while further conciliation talks take place. One of our epsucob@ contacts in Estonia, Iia Täks, provided this report on the dispute over pay. The main purpose of the strike is to achieve fulfillment of the effective pay agreement and pay demands of health workers' unions and conclude a new pay agreement for 2007 and 2008. The previous agreement, signed in 2004, expired on 31 December 2006. In early January, in a bid to avert a looming strike, the employers from Estonian Hospitals' Association offered to raise minimum hourly salaries to 90

Workers in homes for the elderly and children's homes have just seen their monthly pay increase by up to 25%. From 1 January 2007 the minimum monthly salary for an activity instructor in a retirement home rose by €64 (25%) to €320. Meanwhile salaries for workers in children's homes also went up by €64 with the lowest monthly rate now €288 a month.

According to the EIRO industrial relations observatory, civil servants in Estonia are getting pay rises of between 20% and 100% with the higher increases going to the higher paid. Most low paid civil servants will get a 20% increase keeping their salaries in line with the national minimum wage. A collective agreement on civil servants' salary hasn't been reached since 2001, although lower paid civil servants have had pay increases in the intervening years. The current pay increases were negotiated but in the end the EAKL trade union confederation did not sign a collective agreement as the