Israel
The Histradrut trade union confederation has won a significant victory in the labour court over the freedom to organise. The case involved trade union recruitment and organising at the Pelephone telecoms company and the court ruled that the employer should not monitor workers or intervene in the process of trade union organisation.
Read more at > PSI
The Fagforbundet public service union is celebrating an important victory in the appeal court for 22 of its members in a case taken against the Stendi (formerly Aleris) care company. The ruling means that the workers were falsely categorised as “consultants” rather than employees and so were denied key employment rights such as holiday and pension entitlement. The union believes that the judgement will have important implications for the private care sector and is urging the NHO employers’ organisation to ensure that its members note the ruling and end the practice of classifying some workers
The FNV trade union confederation won an important legal case earlier this month involving the Meavista care company that went bankrupt in 2009. With more than 20,000 employees and 100,000 clients and a turnover of half a billion euros Meavita was one of the largest healthcare organizations in the Netherlands.The key element the verdict is the personal liability of the board of directors and the supervisory board and there is a signal to businesses that you cannot use bankruptcy to escape from claims of malpractice. The next step will be to assess damages suffered by the thousands of workers
(May 2016) The BDDSz childcare workers' union (one of EPSU's newest affiliates) secured an important legal victory at the end of May. Following strike action earlier this year, the legality of the strike had been challenged by the government which had argued that the union should have provided a minimum level of service. The legal challenge went throught the whole legal process and the highest court ruled in favour of the union saying that the nature of the service did not require the minimum service. Read more at BDDSz (HU).
