U.K., Netherlands

After several months of negotiations ABVAKABO FNV and the other unions in the sector (CNV public matter and FBZ) have concluded a new agreement covering child welfare workers. The agreement runs from 1 January to 31 December 2005. The salary increase of 1.5 percent will be paid as 1.0 percent from 1 January 2005 and 0.5 per cent from 1 September. Along with pensions and sick pay there are two other important parts of the agreement covering workloads and employer contributions of at least a sixth of the share of the costs of nursery spaces. [Read more at > ABVAKABO->http://www.fnv.nl/abvakabo

The PCS civil service union has successfully pursued equal pay cases on behalf of over 2,500 administrative and managerial workers in the Prison Service. The union proved that a range of administrative and managerial jobs were of equal value to those of prison officers and prison governors but that in some cases the salaries of the mainly women administrative workers were up to £5,000 less than the mainly male prison officers. The case has been running since 1999 and this is the latest failed attempt by the Prison Service to stop the claim. [Read more at > PCS-> http://www.pcs.org.uk/Templates

Public services union UNISON is calling on the government to recognise the skills and potential skills of thousands of healthcare assistants across the UK. The union argues that many healthcare assistants are on the lowest pay rate because the health service is trying to cut costs rather than pay proper salaries. UNISON also says that healthcare assistants' desire for training should be recognised as a way of boosting nursing numbers rather than relying on recruitment from many countries than cannot afford to lose trained healthworkers. [Read more at > UNISON-> http://www.unison.org.uk/news

The long-running dispute in the local government sector is over with a new collective agreement signed on 1 September. The agreement, backdated to 1 April 2004 will run until 1 December 2005 and will include a 1% pay increase effective from 1 June 2005 for the 190,000 workers in the sector. ABVAKABO negotiator Peter Wiechmann said that the long period of strike action was not in vain and an agreement wouldn't have been reached without it. Further details of the agreement will be circulated to the epsucob@ network shortly. [Read more at > ABVAKABO->http://www.fnv.nl/abvakabo/renderer.do/menuId