Finnish President puts forward working time opt-out proposal

The SGB/USS trade union confederation has drafted a policy calling for a national minimum wage that it will put to delegates at a meeting on 17 May. The confederation argues that too many workers are not covered by collective agreements. Even though collective agreements can be extended, there are some sectors without collective agreements at all and so this would still leave many workers without pay protection. The union wants a national minimum wage of CHFR 22 (€15) an hour, with the Cantons (regional governments) having the right to implement higher minimum wages if they want to. [Read more

Both EPSU and the ETUC have expressed their concern about attempts by the Finnish Presidency to end the deadlock on changes to the Working Time Directive. While the federations welcome proposals to place restrictions on use of the opt-out they are very worried that there is no clear indication of eventual abolition of the opt-out. Unions are also unhappy that the Finnish proposals will effectively mean a redefinition of working time to deal European Court judgements on on-call time rather than amending the Directive strictly in line with those judgements. [Read more at > ETUC (EN)->http://www