Global, Cyprus

On 13 March, the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) governing body endorsed an agreement on living wages. This acknowledges that decent wages are central to economic and social development and to advance social justice. The document also says that living wages play an essential role in reducing poverty and inequality and ensuring a decent and dignified life. For the ILO, a living wage is the wage level necessary to afford a decent standard of living for workers and their families, taking into account the country circumstances and calculated for the work performed during the normal hours

The International Trade Union Confederation has welcomed the decision of the governing body of the International Labour Organisation to refer the question of the right to strike to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). There has been a a long-standing dispute between workers’ and employers’ representatives related to the right to strike and the extent to which it derives from the ILO conventions on the freedom of association (87) and the rights to organise and collective bargaining (98). The issue will now be addressed by the ICJ and the ITUC hopes this will unblock the impasse that has

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has published its annual review of trade union rights which again reveals a challenging environment for trade unions with 87% of countries violating the right to strike and 79% violating the right to collective bargaining. In Europe, Belarus, Turkey and Kazakhstan are again among the worst offenders with no guarantees for trade union rights. Seven European countries feature in the next worst category – systematic violation of rights – Greece, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia. The ITUC survey indicates that the situation

EPSU’s global sister organisation PSI will be launching its Digital Bargaining Hub on 26 April (15.00-16.15 CET). This will be the first online, free, publicly accessible, searchable database of bargaining clauses, union guidance, and framework agreements on issues related to digitalisation. During this event PSI will provide a guided, virtual tour of the Digital Bargaining Hub and will also review other resources that can be found on its Digitalisation webpage. These include a series of reports full of information to help improve the understanding of digitalisation and its effects on workers

The International Labour Organisation has published a new report on working time and work-life balance that reviews working hours and working time arrangements and their effects on workers' work-life balance. It finds that over one-third of all workers are regularly working more than 48 hours per week, while a fifth of the global workforce is at the opposite end of the spectrum working short (part-time) hours less than 35 per week. The report concludes with a summary of the key findings which suggest the need to promote reduced working time and offer flexible working time arrangements, such as

The International Trade Union Confederation has published its latest global rights index which exposes the scale and extent of attacks on fundamental trade union rights across the world. In the European region, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Turkey are the worst offenders appearing in the index’s category 5 – assessed as countries providing no guarantee of trade union rights. But plenty of other countries feature in the next categories with Greece, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Romania and Serbia all category 4 countries where there are systematic violations. These are followed by eight countries where there

The International Labour Organisation has published a report that shows that the higher the coverage of employees by collective agreements, the lower the wage differences are. Social Dialogue Report 2022: Collective bargaining for an inclusive, sustainable and resilient recovery is based on a review of collective agreements and practices in 80 countries and the legal and regulatory frameworks in 125 countries. It also provides evidence that collective bargaining can contribute to narrowing the gender pay gap with over half (59 per cent) the agreements reviewed in the study reflecting a joint

The ITUC global trade union confederation has noted the significance of the recent award of the Nobel prize for economics to David Card, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens. Their key research in the 1990s demonstrated that higher minimum wages do not mean fewer jobs, providing a powerful counter-argument to the often heard claims of employers and many governments about the negative effects of minimum wages. The ITUC argues that this prize is a serious indictment of many economists in that it has taken some 30 years for the facts to be given prominence over a damaging and groundless idea. It added

The International Labour Conference has agreed a Global Call to Action outlining measures to create a human-centred recovery from the pandemic. Delegates from 181 countries representing governments, workers and employers adopted the call unanimously, prioritizing the creation of decent jobs for all and addresses the inequalities caused by the crisis. The agreement covers measures to be taken by national governments and their employer and trade union ‘social partners’, to achieve a job-rich recovery that substantially strengthens worker and social protections and supports sustainable

The KTAMS civil service union is taking widespread industrial action (excluding hospitals) over the government's failure to ensure safety in workplaces in response to the continuing threat of the COVID-19 virus. The union action began on 10 September but continued as the government didn't respond to the union's demands.

Public service union PASYDY is to pursue a legal case on pay and pensions cuts during austerity to the European Court of Human Rights. The union has expressed disappointment with a ruling of the country's Supreme Court that the government was within its powers to cut pay and pensions in the period 2011-13 as part of austerity measures following the financial and economic crisis. PASYDY also raises questions about the conduct of the case which has dragged on for nearly eight years and the fact that the judgement appears to be in conflict with other rulings in relation to judges and pensioners.

The International Labour Organisation's (ILO) Global Wage Report 2018-19 finds that wage developments in high-income countries declined from 0.9% to 0.4% from 2016 to 2017. This trend is puzzling for the ILO in the context of a recovery in economic growth and falling unemployment and it argues that wage stagnation is an obstacle to further economic growth and rising living standards. The report also looks at the gender pay gap and using a new way of analysing the difference in men and women's pay finds that the gap has been underestimated in many countries.