9 April 2021
The protocol signed on 6 April will allow companies that put themselves forward to set up a vaccination plan for employees who wish to be vaccinated, once vaccines are widely available in Italy. Mario Draghi’s government, employer organisations and trade unions have also updated the protocols on health and safety at work, set out in spring of last year.
9 April 2021
European Union member states were all compelled by the Covid-19 pandemic to implement urgent reforms to their welfare systems. According to a study of social protection during the Covid-19 pandemic, conducted by the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), the independent research and training centre of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), 24 out of the 27 EU member states have increased the amount or duration of unemployment or income support benefits, or broadened the eligibility conditions for such aid....
8 April 2021
While the U.K. has given companies with at least 250 staff an extra six months to publish their gender pay gap data (c.f. article No. 12377), only one out of four met the initial 04 April deadline. HR experts are worried about this lack of momentum and especially since the situation for females at work has deteriorated alongside the Covid-19 crisis.
7 April 2021
On 05 April, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced that a tripartite agreement regulating outsourcing had been secured, following several months of negotiations between the employers bodies and their closest trade unions, and ending the impasse since November 2020 over the passage of an executive bill (c.f. article No. 12269) banning the practice of outsourcing workers. The bill had previously provoked an outcry from employer organizations. Three main points have emerged from the...
2 April 2021
The highest court in Mexico has defended and reaffirmed a range of articles from the 2019 labour reform, including direct, secret and free ballots for trade union elections, the transparency requirement for trade unions in their budgetary management and the new rules for collective bargaining instituted by the reform. The result is twelve legal precedents that are now binding for Mexico’s new labour courts.
1 April 2021
On 01 April, Ireland’s prime minister, Taoiseach M. Martin, along with the deputy prime minister, Tánaiste L. Varadkar signed a new code of practice formulated by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) that gives all employees the right to disconnect from work. This measure has been included in the new code as a prescriptive instrument and as such is not wholly binding. Separately and as part of a commitment to creating family-friendly working arrangements, the Tánaiste also opened a consultation inviting...
1 April 2021
With schools closed in a large part of the country and only set to gradually reopen after the Easter period, the agreement signed on 18 March at Autostrade per l’Italia (Aspi, Italy’s major motorway management company), and which runs for one month from 22 March, provides agile working parents a specific ‘right to disconnect’ for 1.5 hours every morning, so they can support...
31 March 2021
On 31 March and following several frustrated attempts due to blocking by the conservative wing (CDU/CSU), the bill to ‘support’ Works Councils that Minister of Employment and Social Affairs Hubertus Heil (SPD) presented in December 2020 was finally adopted by the federal government Council of Ministers. The future law renamed the ‘Works Council Modernization Law’ (Betriebsrätemodernisierungsgesetz), aims to facilitate procedures for WC constitution, and for the election and work of employee...
31 March 2021
A comprehensive review of industrial relations. On 30 March the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Leo Varadkar announced the review of a system he considers to be excessively dependent on the voluntary approach by players. A high-level working group, under the aegis of the Labour Employer Economic Forum, which brings together representatives of employers and trade unions with Government Ministers to discuss economic, employment and labour market issues, will meet to draw up proposals for...
30 March 2021
On 24 March New Zealand’s parliament unanimously adopted a new right giving mothers who suffer a miscarriage along with their partners partners, to 3-days of paid bereavement leave. This new right will be effective in a few weeks, following royal assent. Ginny Andersen, Labour MP, who initiated the taboo-breaking legislation stated, “Their grief is not a sickness, it is a loss. And loss takes time.” New Zealand law specifies that going forward all miscarriages will be come under scope, irrespective of their...
