Remunicipalisation, Collective Bargaining, Romania, Denmark

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%.

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

More than 12,000 members of the DSR nursing union took part in a consultation over what should be the main demands in the upcoming collective bargaining negotiations in the public sector. The DSR has selected the main elements focusing on higher pay and better protection of leisure time. The union will aim for as large a percentage wage increase as possible that would recognise the large increase in workload and demands for flexibility during the pandemic and the need to recruit and retain health staff. The DSR recognises, however, the pressure on public finances and the impact of the formula

The Co-Industri group of manufacturing unions has negotiated a new three-year agreement covering 230,000 workers in the private sector and setting the pace for the current bargaining round. The agreement includes a number of significant improvements in areas like work-life balance (paternity and parental leave), sick pay (14 weeks on full pay, up from nine), training and education and pensions, with pension accrual starting from 18. The share of salary that workers can exchange for other benefits (pensions, leave etc.) will increase from 4% to 7%. Over the three-year period the hourly minimum

The Sanitas health trade union has managed to negotiate a collective agreement in the sector despite the strict representative rules that make it extremely difficult to negotiate sector deals in Romania. The agreement confirms many of the rights the union has won over the years and ensures that they apply uniformly across the country. Among the most important elements are holiday entitlement (21-30 days depending on length of service), the role of the trade union in personnel policy, collective redundancies and disciplinary procedures and measures to support nurses' further education and

Health union representatives met with the government on 2 May following a well-supported rally on 26 April. The government has promised to tackle some of the pay and bonus problems identified by health unions but has yet to come up with concrete written proposals. Health union Sanitas wants the government to lift the 30% limit on bonuses and to increase pay for all workers in health and social services. It also wants to negotiate collective agreements in the two sectors. Unless the government addresses these issues the union is planning a two-hour warning strike on 7 May and a national one-day

Following its initial protests in March, the Sanitas health union is planning further action to put pressure on the government over pay and bonuses. A national rally is planned for 26 April and a two-hour warning strike will take place on 7 May followed by a full national strike across the health and social service sectors on 11 May. The union is protesting over the new pay system that hasn't delivered pay increases for all workers. The union also wants a general pay rise, an end to the cap on bonuses, compensation for pay lost to increase social contributions and the right to negotiate

The mediator in the public sector pay dispute has extended the official period of mediation. Unless she decides to end the mediation early then this means that the unions cannot take any strike action until 6 May and employers cannot impose their threatened lockout until 12 May. In the meantime unions are still mobilising their activists and public services union FOA organised a meeting of 2000 worker representatives which reaffirmed their determination to push for a real wage increase as well as special measures to address low pay and pay in occupations dominated by women.

Public sector unions brought together over 10000 shop stewards to debate the way forward in the current conflict over pay and conditions. When the employers failed to come up with an offer on pay, negotiations broke down and a mediator was called in. The unions announced that strike action would take place on 4 April if mediation didn't work. The action would be targeted and involve only 10%-15% of public sector workers. In response, the employers said that they would implement a massive lockout on 14 April covering 90% of state workers and 50% of municipal workers. Mediation is continuing