Regional meetings debate collective bargaining in the energy sector

The FSC-CCOO federation organised a national conference on collective bargaining on 13-14 May to debate strategies and discuss the impact of labour reforms over the past two years. The federation's assessment is that the reforms have only served to increase unemployment, maintain the duality of the labour market, further decrease the use of permanent contracts while encouraging the most precarious forms of temporary and part-time contract. Collective bargaining has been substantially affected in terms of coverage and employers' scope to make unilateral changes to pay and conditions. The FSC

(December 2016) Trade unions, employers and the government are in debate over the pattern of collective bargaining in the country. The EK employers' organisation is looking to sector bargaining while the government favours sector bargaining with a cap set by the pay increase negotiated in the export sector. Trade unions prefer sector bargaining in a national framework and are discussing the implications of possible new arrangements - particularly what the export sector gap would mean for the services sector and scope for negotiating higher increases for sectors dominated by women workers.