Union welcomes minimum staffing requirement

The FOA trade union highlights figures from the VIVE research organisation that show massive variations in staffing levels in eldercare establishments across the country. The staff to resident ratio at night ranges from 1:8 to 1:41, while the evening shift ratio varies from 1:2.7 to 1:11. The variation of ratios on day shifts is less dramatic but still ranges from 1:1.4 to 1:4.2. FOA argues that the varying needs of residents can't account for such variations and that in many cases homes have failed to increase staffing to cope with the higher demands of older residents with health problems

While welcoming progress on addressing health and care staffing issues, public services union ver.di is calling for major improvements to the hospital care relief bill. The union worked with the German Hospital Association and the German Nursing Council to develop the PPR 2.0 instrument for needs-based personnel assessment in nursing and argues that this should form the basis of the legislation and not be mentioned only in the explanatory memorandum. Ver.di says that the basis for staffing must be the care needs of patients and these should be clearly formulated in the law, with minimum

French trade unions have reacted angrily to the failure of the government to respond to their demands following a day of action on 15 May. Unions are continuing to call for higher pay and protection of public services in the face of the government's failure to negotiate and its major reform plans. The unions also reject the government's claims of low levels of support for the strike and the use of temporary workers in the education sector during the strike. The government also drew a strong reaction from trade unions when it imposed new rules on minimum service levels in local authorities