21 epsucob@NEWS 23 October 2006
Two-day national strike in public administration
The FNFSP public service federation has called a two-day national strike on 9 and 10 November in public administration in protest at government policies. The Federation attacks the government for failing to tackle the increasing gap between rich and poor. It says that the gulf between the top 20% and bottom 20% is the highest of any EU country. The Federation also says that the government's proposed public sector pay increase for 2007 of 1.5% will mean a cut in real pay for workers who have already lost around 10% in purchasing power since 2000. The 2007 budget forecasts a reduction in
Unions begin to discuss strategies for national negotiations 2006-2007
The SETCA/BBTK services trade union has set out some of the key issues it thinks should feature in the trade unions' demands in the forthcoming negotiations over the national agreement for 2006-2007. Above all it argues that an important theme of the negotiations should be solidarity among all workers whether currently active or not. The union's background note on the negotiations points out that economic growth is reasonable at 2.7% while company profits grew by 45% between 19 and 2004. Top managers saw their pay increase by 12% last year and a director of a company quoted on the stock
Union wants higher pay and shorter hours for nurses
SIPTU is calling for higher pay and shorter hours nurses in evidence to the Benchmarking Body. As part of the long-running series of national agreements public sector workers' pay and conditions are compared to similar jobs in the private sector. SIPTU is arguing that nurses should be properly rewarded for their round-the-clock service and that recruitment and retention bonuses should be paid in response to the shortage of nurses. The union also notes that there have been many changes to the health service and to nurses' responsibilities since the last benchmarking study. [Read more at > SIPTU
Pay round gets under way
The autumn pay round has got under way with the GMT metal and textile union and GPA private employees' union beginning their negotiations in the metal and energy sectors. The GDG is also preparing for negotiations in the public sector. As background the GDG notes recent tax cuts for the rich, record company profits and public sector workers unable to take on a greater workload. In view of these factors the union has said it won't be satisfied with arguments from employers about the need to make savings. The GDG expressed its solidarity with the GMT and GPA in their attempts to get a fair share
Health union attacks government pay offer
The UK Department of Health is proposing a 1.5% pay increase for nurses and other healthworkers as part of is evidence to the Pay Review Body. The Pay Review Body is the government appointed body which assesses evidence from both sides and recommends pay increases and other changes to working conditions to the government. UNISON head of health and president of EPSU's health standing committee Karen Jennings said: ""It is outrageous to suggest that, unless staff take what is effectively a pay cut, jobs will go and patients will suffer. This is completely unnecessary when the Treasury has
Finnish President puts forward working time opt-out proposal
The Finnish Presidency of the European Union is trying to end the deadlock over revision of the Working Time Directive by proposing a new compromise that will allow countries to offer an opt-out of the maximum weekly hours rule. At the moment the UK is the country that makes most use of the opt-out that says that individual workers can sign away the 48-hour maximum working week limit. Unions having been arguing hard for abolition of the opt-out but the Finnish government is now proposing retention of the opt-out with a new 60-hour weekly limit averaged over four months. [Read more at > the
Commission wants social partners' view on "flexicurity".
The European Commission called on the social partners across Europe to join the debate over “flexicurity” - the policy combining elements of flexibility and security in the labour market that some believe will help boost Europe's employment performance. The ETUC used the opportunity to warn of the dangers of the Commission and the employers focussing too much on labour market flexibility to the detriment of workers' security. The ETUC called for a balanced approach combining strong social support with active measures to assist workers during periods of transition, as is the case in
Unions launch pay petition
Five of the main public services trade unions have come together in campaign over pay and launched a petition calling for an end to the erosion of workers' purchasing power. The unions argue that this year's pay increases (0.5% on 1 July and 1% on 1 November) will again mean a cut in real pay and they want an increase of at least 1.8% in 2007 to compensate for forecast inflation. The unions also want a revision of the public sector pay scale and increases to compensate for the loss of purchasing power since 2000. [Read more at > UGFF CGT (FR)->http://www.ugff.cgt.fr/pdf/carte_petition_stop
Report highlights important role of women in collective bargaining
The report notes the link between the likelihood of the union promoting equality and the extent of women's level of power as negotiators and decision-makers in the union. It also points out the wide variation across Europe between unions with very high participation rates for women in collective bargaining (AC in Denmark at 71%) to unions who did not even know if they had women on their bargaining committees. The report gives EPSU and its Gender Equality Committee and UNISON and its range of policies on women's representation as examples of what unions and federations can do. [Read more in
National private sector pay deal for 2006-2007
The EIRO industrial relations observatory reports that the national private sector pay agreement in Greece will mean backdated increases on minimum wages of 2.9% from 1 January 2006 and 2.9% from 1 September 2006 with a 5.1% increase from 1 January 2007. According to the Eurostat statistical agency inflation in Greece has averaged around 3.4% over the last 12 months. Read more at > EIRO (EN)
Slight narrowing of pay gap
The annual report on wage developments from the LO confederation notes that on average women's pay increased by 3.0% in 2005 compared to 2.6% for men. It said, however, there is still a long way to go before there is pay equality with blue collar women earning around SEK 2700 (€290) a month less than blue collar men. Overall blue collar workers saw pay rise by 2.5% in 2005 compared to 3.0% for white collar workers so both enjoyed real pay increases of over 2.0% as inflation was only 0.4%. Read more at > LO (EN)
Labour inspectorate demonstrate over union representation and negotiations
The CCOO, UGT and CSIF trade union confederations are supporting the employees of the Labour Inspectorate over representation and negotiations. The inspectorate is the body which monitors implementation of labour rights across Spain but its own employees are not represented by an independent trade union and pay and conditions are not set by proper collective bargaining. The vast majority of employees of the inspectorate joined a demonstration on 18 October in support of their rights. The unions believe that the pay and conditions of inspectorate employees are among the worst in the public