Finland
The JHL public service union and Jyty private sector union have negotiated a new agreement covering the Helsingin bus company and avoided industrial action. The employers had initially refused to negotiate a deal in line with the general framework agreement but have now conceded and the planned strike on 2 May will not now go ahead.
Read more at > JHL (EN)
Unions in Veolia, the multinational which owns the Connex transport company, organised an international day of solidarity in support of Swedish activist Per Johanssen, sacked for expressing concerns about health and safety. In Finland, for example, bus drivers demonstrated their solidarity by stopping their buses for two minutes at 2pm. Read more at > EPSU Read more at > Finnish news site
The GMB energy and general union declared an end to the long and bitter dispute with British Gas over its aggressive policy of firing and rehiring workers. GMB members voted three to one to accept a new deal. Around 7,000 British Gas engineers staged 44 days of strike action after the company threatened to sack them if they didn’t sign up to detrimental changes to their terms and conditions. The new deal offers improvements to overtime rates and unsocial hours payments, places limits on the amount of unsocial working undertaken, reverses the decision to close the defined benefit pension scheme
The ver.di services union has ended the strike in the Deutsche Telekom company following a compromise over the company's plans for outsourcing of 50,000 jobs. Although the outsourcing to three new companies will go ahead the employees affected will not suffer the level of pay cuts initially sought by the company. However, there will be a 6.5% cut in pay and increase in weekly hours from 34 to 38. At the same time there is a commitment to reduce outsourcing and to increase training. The company has agreed that there will be no redundancies at least until 2012. [Read more at > ver.di (DE)->http
