Estonia, EPSU Collective Bargaining News

EPSU affiliates have been supporting the campaign of industrial action called by the EAKL trade union confederation. Transport workers have been at the forefront of the strike over changes to the laws on collective bargaining and employment contracts while teachers have also been taking separate strike action over their demand for a 20% pay increase. The EPSU energy affiliate showed its support with industrial action at the Narva power plant. [Read more at > Baltic Course news website (EN)->http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/energy/?doc=54339] [And more at > ERR news website (EN)->http://news

On 12 July the interior minister Jüri Pihk and Kalle Liivamägi, chair of the ROTAL trade unions signed a social partnership agreement, the first in the Estonian state sector. The agreement covers consultations at all levels between the employers and trade union representatives. In the first stage they will meet in a number of different taskforces that will look at changes in working conditions, working time and salaries.

The EIRO industrial relations observatory reports that health unions in Estonia are seeking a 30% pay increase. Figures indicate that while doctors earn around 1.5 times the average wage and nurses earnings are about the same as average earnings, care workers earn only 50% of the average wage. Health workers also have to rely on unsocial hours payments to supplement their low basic salaries. The health sector is facing a major challenge to deal with a shortage of workers as many doctors and nurses emigrate to find better paid employment. [Read more at > EIRO (EN)->http://www.eiro.eurofound.eu

The minimum wage in Estonia is set to rise to 4,350 kroons (€278) in January 2008 following agreement between the EAKL trade union confederation and the employers. This represents an increase of 21% on the current minimum wage of 3,600 kroons a month. Although this is well ahead of inflation (8.5% in the 12 months to October) it is only just in line with increases in average earnings (20%-22%). This means that the minimum wage will remain at just under 40% of average earnings even after this significant increase. [Read more at > Baltic Times (EN)->http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/19353

At the beginning of March the council of ROTAL the main public administration union passed a resolution detailing a wide range of demands on pay, conditions and collective bargaining. It criticised the government for implementing decrees on the pay of state officials and workers in state institutions without taking account of any of the ROTAL's proposed revisions. The union is also unhappy that public sector pay has failed to keep up with inflation and government proposals to cut income tax will hit the funding of state organisations. The resolution contains a list of specific demands on

The emergency and related services in Estonia - the police, prisons and fire services - are finding very difficult to recruit staff because of low pay with many workers moving abroad. According to one survey 40% of police officers left the force because of low pay. Better pay for emergency service workers and other state employees is one of a number of demands called for by the ROTAL union and supported by EPSU in a letter to the Estonian Prime Minister. [Read more at > EIRO (EN)->http://www.eiro.eurofound.eu.int/2006/05/articles/ee0605029i.html] [And at > EPSU (EN)->http://www.epsu.org/a/2216

According to the EIRO industrial relations observatory employers in the health sector claim they cannot afford to pay the 2006 salary increases that were agreed as part of the two-year deal signed in 2004. Unions are worried that failure to pay the increases and the action by the employers to undermine the collective bargaining system will lead to increase emigration by healthcare workers. The 2004 agreement allowed for pay increases of 50% doctors, 56% for nurses and 43.7% for medical carers over the two-year period. [Read more at > EIRO->http://www.eiro.eurofound.eu.int/2006/02/inbrief

A strike planned for 22 January has been postponed while further conciliation talks take place. One of our epsucob@ contacts in Estonia, Iia Täks, provided this report on the dispute over pay. The main purpose of the strike is to achieve fulfillment of the effective pay agreement and pay demands of health workers' unions and conclude a new pay agreement for 2007 and 2008. The previous agreement, signed in 2004, expired on 31 December 2006. In early January, in a bid to avert a looming strike, the employers from Estonian Hospitals' Association offered to raise minimum hourly salaries to 90