10 October 2019
During the IG Metall national congress held in Nuremberg between 06 and 12 October, Jörg Hofmann, the head of Germany’s biggest 2.3 million member strong trade union, was voted in for a second four-year term, but surprisingly, and in contrast with his 91.3% majority in the 2015 vote, Mr. Hofmann only garnered 71% of the vote, making this the second lowest majority in the whole of the...
9 October 2019
‘One can’t be all things to all people’. The sentiment of being inadequately represented by major trade union federations that tend to favour the most influential sectors within their organizations is one shared by Red Sindical TIC (RSTIC is an ICT trade union network) , which has been growing in Spain’s Catalonia region and has the intention of gradually negotiating the sectoral agreement for ICT and market research companies. Its dual-goal is be able to offer a response to problems arising...
9 October 2019
With the industrial cleaning sector’s social partners unable to successfully conclude collective agreement renewal negotiations that commenced at the start of August and that will affect 650,000 sector employees, the IG BAU construction union has found an effective way of applying pressure on employers, namely since 07 October 2019 it is using its website to ‘call-out’ companies...
9 October 2019
In the throes of economic recession, and amid widespread uncertainty, Argentina’s banking sector has just signed a ‘Super-agreement’, or ‘Record-agreement’ that updates and revalues salaries (paritaria), taking the 2019 year-to-date rise to an inflation-matching 50%. This latest increase raises the sector’s salary floor to more than three times the minimum salary. The agreement comes at a time of broadly generous salary increases for workers within the banking sector.
8 October 2019
While Germany’s trade unions may have, after many years of painful restructuring and reform, succeeded in stemming a membership slide, the same cannot be said for companies that continue to opt out of sector collective agreements (Tarifflucht); a phenomenon that since the end of the 90s has been becoming increasingly more marked. In 1998, 76% of employees in the west of the country were covered by a collective agreement. The corresponding percentage in 2018 was just 56%. In the former East German Länders, this...
8 October 2019
46,000 United Auto Workers (UAW) members working at General Motors (GM) have entered their fourth week of strike action as both the trade union and GM management teams remain firmly camped in their diametrically opposed camps.
7 October 2019
The Hans Böckler trade union foundation has recently published its mid-term review for collective agreements in 2019, as well as a calendar for negotiations taking place in the remainder of 2019 and in 2020. Overall, close to 10 million workers will be affected by these negotiations. During the first six months of 2019, the average pay rise obtained was 3.2% (compared to an average pay rise of 3% in 2018), while inflation during the period was 1.6%. According to the foundation, these figures indicate an upward...
3 October 2019
On 30 September, Belgium’s banking sector social partners including Febelfin (employers’ federation), and the CGSLB, FGTB, and CSC trade unions bodies signed an agreement that will apply to almost 51,000 working in the banking sector. As with the previous agreement, the joint sector Committee (CP 310) focused on the issues of purchasing power, training and end-of-career. Among its new directions are the right to disconnect and teleworking.
3 October 2019
According to a survey by the Hans Böckler Foundation (trade unions) released two days ahead of Germany’s national unity day, and almost thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, employees in the east of the country continue to earn much less than their colleagues in the western Länders. For a given qualifications level, professional experience, profession and gender, the east-west pay gap amounts to 16.9%. The pay differential is even greater for employees having undertaken occupational training or having achieved additional professional training qualifications, while it is less pronounced for university degree holders....
2 October 2019
On 12 September 2019, global utilities group SUEZ signed a new European agreement on professional equality that applies to almost 61,000 staff working across all its subsidiaries Europewide. The agreement targets a continued increase in the number of females employed and affirms its zero tolerance policy in terms of wage discrimination and sexual harassment, as well as making a commitment to match paternity leave remuneration conditions with those for maternity leave (c.f. article No. 11355). In an interview with...
