Collective Bargaining, Working Time, Europe

As the trend towards public sector pay cuts began to take hold across Europe, EPSU decided it was important to monitor the impact of those cuts and the way they were being implemented. Two major reports produced by the Labour Research Department set out not just the facts and figures in 10 countries where cuts were imposed but also provide case studies to show what those cuts have meant for individual public sector workers.

(June 2016) The European Trade Union Institute has published a policy brief looking at the mechanism of collective bargaining extention. With collective bargaining under attack in some countries, the policy brief reviews the different forms as well as the spread and current practice of extension mechanisms across Europe. It then discusses the relationship between extension mechanisms, collective bargaining coverage and union density and finally formulates political recommendations of how to ensure the future of multi-employer bargaining through extension procedures. Read more at ETUI (EN).

(July 2016) The latest collective bargaining newsletter from the ETUI includes several articles on public services - pay developments affecting health staff (Hungary, Romania) and public service workers in general (Croatia, Ireland), strike action by museum workers in UK and action by Bulgarian unions over the right to strike. Read more at ETUI (EN).

A new report from the Eurofound research agency analyses trends in collectively negotiated wages compared to productivity over the 2000-2017 period. The report says that: "From an employee perspective...applying harmonised consumer prices, wages per employee have grown more slowly than productivity since the beginning of the millennium and the gap has been widening, despite hourly wages having been more aligned." It adds that: "In most countries with available data (14 EU Member States), there has been a positive wage drift since the early 2000s, indicating that actual wages have grown more

EPSU affiliates have had a busy year fighting for pay rises and improvements in employment and working and conditions for their members across Europe. A round-up of key developments highlights some of the major conflicts and calls for solidarity, including the public sector pay dispute in Denmark in the spring, the equal pay strike in Glasgow in November and the support built across the Orpea social care multinational for striking workers in Germany. EPSU's collective bargaining newsletter has covered all these and more in its 300+ articles reporting on health, social services, local, regional

EPSU has published a report that compares pay developments in the public and private sectors in 44 countries over the period 2003 to 2017. One of the main findings of the report, written by the Labour Research Department, is the greater impact of austerity on public sector pay trends in the European Union compared to countries outside the EU. The survey found 10 states where there was similar pay growth in both the public and private sector before the crisis, but since then the public sector has fallen behind (eight EU states and two outside the EU) and there were four states where public

A new ETUI publication, Multi-employer bargaining under pressure: decentralisation trends in five European countries, investigates developments in the shift from centrally coordinated multi-employer to decentralized collective bargaining in a number of EU Member States where the former has been traditionally stronger (Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Spain). It also looks at whether company level bargaining can play a useful new role in setting working conditions, without paving the way for social dumping and widened inequalities.

The ETUC has published the priorities for its Collective Bargaining and Wages Coordination Committee. These cover four main areas - (re)building and enhancing collective bargaining; pursuing upward wage and social convergence; combating in-work poverty, particularly through increasing wages for the lower paid; and increasing solidarity and reducing inequalities. The detailed policy document sets out how the ETUC will follow up on its Pay Rise campaign and includes provisions for a two-year project where the ETUC will aim to support initiatives at national level to boost sector-level bargaining

The latest edition of collective bargaining news from the European Trade Union Institute contains several articles on developments in the public services, including resistance to privatisation in Croatia and Greece, a strike over staffing levels at Limassol hospital in Cyprus, a national strike over pay by midwives in Iceland, the latest on the six-hour-day experiement at the Svartedalen care home in Sweden and a report on pay differentials for civil servants doing the same work in Germany.

It has been longstanding EPSU policy that pay in public services should develop in line with pay in the private sector and a new report commissioned by EPSU from the Labour Research Department (LRD) provides an overview of trends in over 40 countries. The main findings of the report were presented to EPSU's Quality Employment conference by Lionel Fulton of LRD who grouped countries in five main categories: comparable pay growth interrupted by the crisis (10 countries); lower public service pay growth made worse by the crisis (4 countries); lower public service pay growth not clearly linked to

Collective bargaining is key to delivering quality employment and this was at the centre of the final debate at EPSU's Quality Employment conference last week. Silvia Fernández García of FSC-CCOO in Spain, Kevin Callinan of Fórsa in Ireland and Marie-Louise Knuppert of OAO in Denmark joined the panel discussion to reflect on how collective bargaining had developed in recent years in their countries. Both Silvia and Kevin described the impact of austerity and the cuts to pay and conditions faced by public services workers. However, they were also both able to describe how their unions had

The annual Benchmarking Working Europe study from the European Trade Union Institute includes a section providing the latest data on wage developments, collective bargaining, minimum wage and union density. The study notes that more positive statements about wages are coming from the European institutions with issues of fairness also raised in the European PIllar of Social Rights. However, these were not yet reflected in the Country Specific Recommendations issued last year where the focus was still on decentralisation of collective bargaining and moderation in minimum wage increases. The

On 6-7 June, EPSU is holding a second conference in Brussels in the context of its current project on quality employment and quality public services. Along with special sessions looking at the prisons and childcare sectors there will also be debates on pay trends in the public sector compared to the private sector; low pay in sectors dominated by women; young workers and quality employment; a panel on developments in collective bargaining and some initial research findings on the impact of digitalisation on the home care and public employment services.

The latest issue of the European Trade Union Institute's Collective Bargaining Newsletter provides updates from all European Union countries and more. This month's edition includes news on public service strikes, disputes and negotiations, including in Bulgaria (prisons), Cyprus (waste), Malta (pensions) and Slovenia.

Figures produced by the ETUC and the European Trade Union Institute show that wages across Europe would have been four times higher than they are now if they had kept pace with productivity. Tracking wage increases against productivity developments the figures for some countries even show productivity rising while real wages have fallen. This was the case in Hungary, Portugal, Romania and Greece.