Collective Bargaining, Energy, Serbia, Romania, Belgium

The Nezavinost trade union confederation has called a national demonstration outside government offices in Belgrade on 10 December with a call for a 25% pay increase for all public sector workers. The key message of the demonstration is the need to properly value and recognise the work of public sector employees, to ensure their health and safety and guarantee compliance of employers with collective agreements.

Following the day of protest and strike action on 9 November, the three trade union confederations – ACV/CSC, ABVV/FGTB and CGLSB/ACLVB are planning further action with a national demonstration set for 16 December. The unions are calling for a revision to the salary law that restricts the unions’ scope to negotiate and they want to retain the pay indexation system that they are worried is under threat from the employers. Their other demands cover action on energy costs, a shift in taxation to support workers and measures to restrict flexi-jobs.

The Publisind trade union federation organised a protest rally on 17 August outside the Ministry of Labour to highlight a range of issues relating to the pay and pensions of its members in prisons and police services. The union is angry that a key law on salaries has not been fully implemented and is calling for a 15% pay rise for prison and police staff. The union points out that its members were essential to the efforts to tackle the COVID pandemic with many staff working very long hours to try to maintain services in the face of staff shortages of around 25%.

Over 80,000 people joined the national demonstration in Brussels on 20 June organised by the three main trade union confederations FGTB/ABVV, CSC/ACV, CGLSB/ACLVB. The unions want to see a change to the legal framework that imposes limits on the cross-sector pay negotiations and leaves trade unions with little room to bargain on top of the indexation system. EPSU’s Belgian affiliates all joined the march, along with EPSU staff.

The three trade union confederations ACV/CSC, ABVV/FGTB and ACLVB/CGSLB are building for their national demonstration on 20 June. This is part of the trade union movement’s campaign to put pressure on the government to do more to protect workers against inflation and to reform the wage law that imposes restrictions on the scope to negotiate pay rises in the biennial, cross-sector collective bargaining. Petitioning by the unions has already paid off as it has given them the opportunity to take part in a parliamentary hearing on 29 June.

The three trade union confederations – ACV/CSC, ABVV/FGTB, and ACLVB/CGLSB are continuing their campaigns around pay and their calls to reform the law on salaries that imposes limits on the pay increases that trade unions can negotiate. The confederations are highlighting the impact of surging inflation on workers and are putting pressure on the employers and government to address the problem, deliver fair pay and revise the law that sets the wage norm. A series of actions were organised around the country on 22 April and a national demonstration is planned for 20 June.

The three trade union confederations – ACV/CSC, ABVV/FBTG and ACLVB/CGLSB – have launched a petition on pay with the aim of securing 25000 signatures and getting a debate in parliament. The confederations want to see changes to legislation that impose restrictions on the scope for negotiating pay rises. They argue that the current system leaves little room for manoeuvre and means that increasing inflation is eating rapidly into workers’ purchasing power. The unions want to ensure that the current system of indexation is maintained and also to allow for the right to negotiate on pay at all

The two main trade union confederations – FGTB/ABVV and CSC/ACV – are jointly organising a national demonstration on 6 December. They want to raise the problem of defending living standards as inflation increases, particularly driven by soaring energy prices. The confederations want to ensure that there is real space for proper negotiations and are challenging the provisions of the 1996 law that restricts the scope for pay increases. In the recent biennial negotiations the margin for increasing pay above inflation was limited to 0.4%. The confederations also want to defend trade union rights

An estimated 15000 people joined a demonstration in Brussels on 24 September calling for a change to the legislation that regulates the cross-sector negotiations in the private sector. The protest was organised by the FGTB/ABVV confederation which argues that the current rules impose an excessive restriction on the unions’ scope for negotiation. In the latest biennial negotiations, the law meant that there was only an additional 0.4% that could be added to the normal increase for inflation. The FGTB argues that the law is more focused on keeping Belgian companies competitive rather than taking

On 5 July a group of 13 Romanian trade unionists arrived in Brussels after a four-day rolling protest from Bucharest over the low wages that force many of their fellow citizens to make similar journeys to find decent work. The “Caravan of Social Rights” stopped in Budapest, Vienna, Munich and Luxembourg along the way to stage protests outside Romanian embassies with the support of local trade unions. GDP per capita in Romania is now 72% of the EU average, but Romanian workers’ pay is just 28% of the EU average and the minimum wage is just €281 a month when the cost of living is €572 a month

The three main trade union confederations are pleased that, following the national day of action on 29 March 29, the government agreed to separate negotiations on welfare from those on pay. This was a key demand of the trade unions who agreed to approve the funds allocated to a range of payments from unemployment benefit to pensions. The budget of more than 700 million euros intended to maintain the lowest benefit rates should have been implemented last September, but the employers wanted to link it to an agreement on wages. The unions are disappointed that it took so long to arrive at an