Social package gets lukewarm response as unions demonstrate over latest court case

National agreements negotiated in recent years (Sustaining Progress and Towards 2016) include clauses requiring consultation over any public sector employers' plans to outsource work or use agency staff. The public service union IMPACT has won a Labour Court judgement stating that managers at University College Hospital Galway should have consulted over the proposal to use agency staff for a range of clerical and administrative jobs. The union points out that the agency workers are doing the same job as permanent staff but for less pay. The Court has required the hospital to take immediate

The ETUC and its Swedish affiliates have expressed their concern and disappointment about aspects of the European Court's recent judgement on the Laval case. The case involved action by the Swedish construction union to blockade a building site where a Latvian company was paying Latvian construction workers less than the pay rates negotiated in the Swedish collective agreement. While the Court acknowledged the right of Swedish unions to take action to defend their collective agreements the ETUC believes that judgements poses a challenge to the Swedish system of collective bargaining and those