Belgium
Unions have signed a new two-year agreement covering the 80,000 civil servants employed at federal level. Bearing in mind the difficult negotiating conditions, they are positive about the agreement that covers improvements in a broad range of employment conditions, including increases to the year-end bonus marking further progress towards a 13th month salary.
Read more at > ACOD (NL)
And at > CGSP (FR)
On 3 April, the main trade union confederations - Cgil, Csil and Uil - signed an agreement with the public service ministry covering the health and safety and working time of civil servants. This follows the 25 March agreement covering the safety of healthcare workers and the 19 March agreement in the waste sector. The agreement covers the role of trade unions, smart working, rules for workers who have to attend workplaces and the health and safety procedures to be followed to protect both workers and members of the public, such as closure of facilities for cleaning where there have been COVID
A new agreement has been signed covering central government workers. It is divided into two periods, from 1 April 2014 to 31 January 2016 and from 1 February to 31 January 2017. In the first period there will be a flat-rate increase of €20 a month from 1 August 2014 and then a 0.3% increase from 1 August 2015. Bonuses and additional pay given in euros will also be increased by 0.73% from 1 August 2014. For the second period, if the cross-sector social partners cannot agree on salary increases by 15 June 2015, then the agreement may be terminated with a four-month period of notice. The
Frank Bsirske, chair of the ver.di services union, has attacked government plans to increase weekly hours for 300,000 federal civil servants to 41 a week and to cut special payments. This follows only shortly after the new agreement for federal employees came into effect with a 39-hour week and retention of some special payments. From verdi's viewpoint the negotiations were on the basis that the conditions would also apply to civil servants who don't have the right to collective bargaining. [Read more at > verdi->http://presse.verdi.de/pressemitteilungen/showNews?id=3936ee50-5129-11da-792f
