Pay settlements

Members of the FNV trade union are voting on whether to accept the new negotiated agreement covering staff in public libraries. The two and a half year agreement actually covers the period from 1 July 2020 to 31 December 2022 with some measures already implemented including a 3% pay increase in 2020 and a 2% increase in 2021. There will be a further increase of 2% as of 1 July 2022 and a one-off pro-rata payment of €300 gross in March 2022. The agreement covers other working conditions including the introduction of an annual hours system this year, a new compensation scheme for working on

The FNV, along with other trade unions, has negotiated a three-year deal for around 100,000 mental health workers that provides for pay increases of up to 9% and a minimum increase of €60 a month. There is a 2% pay increase each year plus a change to the pay structure that equates to overall increases of 7%-9%. There are also improvements to call-out and rest arrangements, a €2-a-day working-from-home allowance and reduced working time for those within four years of retirement. Union members will now vote on the offer. Meanwhile, there has been progress in the nursing home and home care sector

The OSSOO trade union representing public service workers has reacted angrily to the announcement that 30,000 civil servants will face a pay freeze this year. The union argues that this fails to recognise the efforts of state workers during the pandemic and the threat to living standards posed by large increases in energy and other costs. OSSOO is also protesting over the failure of the government to engage in any form of negotiation. The union is coordinating open letters from different groups of workers to their relevant minister raising the issue and highlighting the impact of the pay

The Fp-Cgil public service federation, along with the Fisascat-Cisl and Uiltucs trade unions, has signed a three-year agreement covering around 50,000 health and social care workers employed by ecclesiastical organisations. The agreement is backdated to 2020 and runs to 2022 with a pay increase of on average €95 paid in two instalments – €50 in December 2021 and €45 in December 2022. The agreement also provides improvements in certain job classifications, maternity leave and leave to look after sick children. There will also be a cap on the use of fixed-term contracts. Meanwhile a new

Childcare workers in the private sector who are covered by pay regulations rather than a collective agreement are getting a 3.2% pay increase following negotiations led by the GPA and vida trade unions. Meanwhile, full-time workers in private health and social care are now entitled to a 37-hour week as of 1 January. This was the result of earlier negotiations by the GPA and vida unions and reflects their long-running campaign to tackle overwork in the sectors. The unions are also determined to continue their efforts to reduce working time with a target of a 35-hour week.

The main public service federations have signed a preliminary agreement covering the 250000 staff in central government for the three-year period 2019-2021. After eight months of negotiations and 25 meetings, the agreement delivers an average pay increase of €90 a month backdated to 1 January 2021 in a deal worth around 5%. The agreement also covers a range of areas including remote work, parental leave, support for women who are victims of violence and new procedures covering progression through pay grades. Meanwhile, Fp-Cgil and Uil-Fpl have signed an agreement with the ARIS private health

Staff in European institutions, bodies and agencies will get a net 1.9% increase in salaries, pensions, and social allowances backdated to 1 July 2021. This is the result of a formula that has been applied since the early 1980s, when the EPSU member organisation, Union Syndicale Fédérale carried out successful industrial action, also defending the gains later through further industrial action. The salaries (and later also pensions) of staff have kept pace with the development in the purchasing power of civil servants working in the national governments of the Member States. In 2020, this

Civil servants and other public sector workers will get a 3% increase in pay as of 1 July 2022 and will also receive a one-off payment of €350 in January. In the second half of 2022, there will also be an extra day of paid leave. Although the increase is below the trade unions’ initial demands it is significantly better than the 0% offer that the government had made in the third round of bargaining.

Public service federations are highlighting the sustained loss of purchasing power suffered by public sector workers as the government has again decided to freeze the index point on which salary calculations are based. There will be a small increase for the lowest paid workers but this is only to ensure that the lowest pay rates do not fall below the national minimum wage. The loss of purchasing power is estimated at over 20% over the course of the past 20 years, with the index frozen since for 10 years apart from a small increase in 2016-17.

EPSU affiliate the LSADPS and eight other medical trade unions organisations have negotiated a new three-year collective agreement that runs from 1 January 2022 and covers workers from the entire health sector, who are members of the trade union organisations involved in the negotiations. This is the first time all trade unions have come together to sign one sectoral collective agreement. A combination of factors mean that wages are set to increase by an average of 10.9% in 2022. There is also a commitment to ensure funding for wage increases to prevent a recurrence of the delay in wage rises

Following almost three months of intensive negotiations, 80% of employees in health and social care will receive pay increases of between 4% and 24% this month. However, such are the staffing and workload problems in these sectors, that further negotiations will take place in January to address workloads as well as the fact that some health and care staff are not covered by the initial agreement. Existing staffing shortages have been made worse as health and social staff have left the sector because of the stress and overwork resulting from the pandemic. Around 35000 healthcare, social care

In a challenging bargaining environment services union ver.di secured a 2.8% pay increase for 1.1 million regional government employees plus a tax-free payment of €1300. Health workers are to get more money through increases in allowances. The lump sum will be paid early in the new year (trainees, interns and students are to get €650) while the pay increase will take effect on 1 December 2022 as part of the 24-month agreement. The union estimates that the combination of the €1300 lump sum, the 1.4% increase in January 2021 (part of the previous agreement) and the 2.8% in December 2022 should

The annual pay negotiations that cover the public sector have resulted in an average pay increase of 3% which will also apply to allowances and other pay additions. Lower paid workers will actually see their pay rise by 3.22% with a 2.91% applied to higher salaries. The increases come into effect on 1 January 2022. The increase is the highest for more than 10 years and ahead of the inflation rate up to September 2020 which forms one of the agreed bases for the negotiations.

The five national trade union confederations sent a solidarity message to the MESZK chamber of healthcare professionals in support of its protest march in Budapest on 31 July. The demonstrators called for pay increases for nurses in line with those already awarded to doctors and argued this was crucial to help stem the migration of nurses to western Europe. Earlier this year the five confederations also came together to file a complaint with the International Labour Organisation over the government’s imposition of new legislation which removes the rights to negotiate and take strike action

The FNV and other trade unions have negotiated a collective agreement covering workers in provincial councils that will run to 31 December this year (backdated to 1 January). Salaries rise by EUR 50 from 1 January 2021 with a further increase of 1.2% from 1 July. There will also be a one-off payment of EUR 750 (pro-rata for part timers) on 1 September in appreciation of the flexibility shown during the corona crisis. The agreement also includes provision to ensure sustainability of employment covering parental leave, measures to support older workers and help for employees facing major life