Pay settlements, Lithuania, Hungary

The LSADPS health workers’ union reports that its members in public health will benefit from pay rises of around 14% from the beginning of this month. This is based on the collective agreement negotiated by the LSADPS and eight other health sector trade unions in 2021 and updated in October of last year. Along with higher basic pay there are increases to the coefficients on which salaries are based and these will apply to the members of the trade unions that have signed the agreement. The average increase for all health staff will be around 8%.

EPSU affiliate the LSADPS and eight other medical trade unions organisations have negotiated a new three-year collective agreement that runs from 1 January 2022 and covers workers from the entire health sector, who are members of the trade union organisations involved in the negotiations. This is the first time all trade unions have come together to sign one sectoral collective agreement. A combination of factors mean that wages are set to increase by an average of 10.9% in 2022. There is also a commitment to ensure funding for wage increases to prevent a recurrence of the delay in wage rises

The five national trade union confederations sent a solidarity message to the MESZK chamber of healthcare professionals in support of its protest march in Budapest on 31 July. The demonstrators called for pay increases for nurses in line with those already awarded to doctors and argued this was crucial to help stem the migration of nurses to western Europe. Earlier this year the five confederations also came together to file a complaint with the International Labour Organisation over the government’s imposition of new legislation which removes the rights to negotiate and take strike action

Public service unions have made a major breakthrough after three years of negotiations following the signing of a sector collective agreement covering workers in social services. Around 1000 social workers, social worker assistants and home care employees will see a range of improvements to pay and conditions, including a 4.3% rise in the minimum coefficient used to calculate salaries along with further increases for specific groups of workers. There are other measures to compensate workers covering for absent colleagues and for using private cars. The agreement will only apply to union