Social Services

The UNIO trade union confederation whose members cover workers with higher education has been pushing for higher pay deals in three negotiations – national local government, Oslo municipality and public companies represented by the employers’ organisation, Spekter. The NSF nurses’ union is one of UNIO’s members involved in the strikes and negotiations and they are calling for higher pay for nurses to tackle major staff shortages. The government has stepped in to end strikes in local government and the Oslo municipality on the grounds, rejected by the trade unions, that the actions pose a

The ver.di services union has written to MPs calling for urgent improvements to be made to the draft regulations on pay in the eldercare sector put forward jointly by the health and labour ministers. The union argues that in their current form the regulations could allow social dumping through yellow unions signing poor collective agreements with employers. Ver.di has argued that a sector collective agreement is needed and called for its agreement with the BVAP employers’ organisation to be extended to the whole sector. However, the initiative was blocked by the big non-profit employers in the

Public service federations – Fp-Cgil, Cisl-Fp and Uil-Fpl – have signed a collective agreement with the Misericordie non-profit association that delivers various health and social services. The agreement covers the period 2017-2019 and delivers an EUR 85 a month increase which brings the agreement in line with that negotiated by the ANPAS national association for social assistance. Workers will also get a EUR 1200 lump sum that will be paid in four instalments by January 2022 and vouchers to the value of Eur 200 to be paid around Christmas. A productivity bonus will be suspended pending

Trade unions in the health and social care sectors are continuing their campaigns and mobilisations to ensure that all workers in public and private sectors benefit from the provisions of the national “Ségur de santé” agreement on pay and conditions negotiated last year. Unions also want to see further measures to tackle urgent questions of understaffing and excessive working time. Actions took place on 3 June and further action is planned for 15 June. On 10 June unions also came together in a major demonstration to highlight the particular problems facing psychologists relating to

Several unions representing workers in early years education came together on 5 May in a day of strike action and a demonstration in Brussels. Workers are angry about the impact of the pandemic on the sector and the failure of the authorities in the Wallonia and Brussels regions to address their concerns. The unions were also demanding a revaluation of pay in the sector and a range of other measures to deal with staffing issues, leave, contracts and increased public funding.

The four trade unions representing health and social care workers in the public and private sectors – younion, GÖD, vida and GPA-djp – have written an open letter to national and regional governments calling for urgent action on training. The unions say that an additional 75000 trained workers will be need in the sectors by 2030 and that measures need to be taken to increase the number of trainees to help meet the demand. Unlike other professions, health and care trainees are not paid when they are working on the job during their training. The unions argue that this is a major disincentive to

The main unions in residential care in the Galicia region, UGT, CC.OO. and CIG, have formed a common front to mobilise and put pressure on private nursing home companies, which they accuse of blocking the negotiation of a new collective agreement to replace the one that expired at the end of 2019. The series of mobilizations will end on 19 May with a demonstration outside San Lázaro residence in the Galician capital, run by the DomusVi French care multinational. The unions point out that pay scales mean that effectively some jobs are set below the minimum wage with pay for kitchen assistants