All articles

United States: President Joe Biden’s pro-union video amid the unionisation campaign at Amazon (Alabama)
Joe Biden is seen to be lending full support to the unionization campaign at Amazon’s Bessemer site in Alabama. In a video published on Twitter on 01 March (here), the Democrat president...
Germany: metal industry negotiations become increasingly strained
With collective bargaining in Germany’s metal industry at a standstill, the IG Metall union has announced that a spell of warning strikes will run from 2 March 2021 until the end of the...
ASOS: joint statement signed with IndustriAll Global to support the economic and social recovery of the global garment industry
The garment industry has been hit by an unprecedented crisis, resulting most notably from the cancellation of orders by major brands and retailers. Many workers in supply chains have lost work as...
UNI Global publishes guide for trade unions to defend the rights of remote workers
International trade unions are addressing the issue of remote work. On Wednesday 23 February, UNI Global Union, the international services sector trade union federation, published a set of...
26 February 2021
EU: trade unions and NGOs lobby to ensure European subsidies to agricultural firms help improve working conditions for workers in the sector
How could a common EU policy, which represents a third of the European budget, ignore the plight of workers to such an extent? That is the question posed by 300 signatories – including unions...
26 February 2021
EU: neutral dress code policies in the workplace should be able to distinguish between ‘discreet’ and ‘conspicuous’ religious signs (conclusions of the Advocate General of the CJEU)
The Court of justice of the European Union (CJEU) has previously ruled on the ban on wearing religious signs in the workplace and on its consistency with discrimination related legislation (c.f...
25 February 2021
Italy: Milan’s public prosecutor’s office orders 4 online platforms to hire more than 60,000 delivery personnel
The Milan public prosecutor’s office has decided to strike hard. Following an investigation that began in 2019 after a number of road traffic accidents involving bike delivery riders, the...
25 February 2021
Sweden: another step towards reforming employment termination legislation
Sweden’s government is taking another step towards significant reform of it ‘employment protection’ legislation. It has just set up a number of working groups to formulate details for a reform of...
25 February 2021
EU: European Commission launches its first phase consultation of social partners on platform workers
On 24 February and as part of its considerations on how best to improve working conditions for platform workers, the European Commission launched its first phase consultation of the European...
24 February 2021
Italy: only the occupational physician i.e. not the employer can collect employee vaccination information (Italian Data Protection Agency)
While getting inoculated against Covid-19 is not compulsory in Italy, an issue currently being debated among labor lawyers is whether or not employers can terminate the employment contract of...
Great Britain: large companies given a 6-month delay for publishing their ‘gender pay gap’ data.
After the government’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) cancelled the mandatory publication of gender pay gap data by large companies for 2020 (c.f. article No.11757), due to the...
24 February 2021
Belgium: negotiations over a national inter-professional agreement continue to stall with a second day of trade union action on the cards
Amid difficult negotiations over the 2021-2022 national inter-professional agreement, Belgium’s social partners continue to lock horns over the calculated maximum allowed salary increase ceiling...
23 February 2021
Great Britain: employers can legally refuse to hire job candidates who have not had a Covid-19 vaccine
UK Justice Secretary, Robert Buckland has acknowledged that employers can legally insist that new employees are vaccinated against Covid-19. The legality of the ‘no jab no job’ clause...
23 February 2021
EU: IndustriAll Europe launches a campaign to reposition the worker’s choice at the heart of telework
23 February is the launch date for IndustriAll Europe’s ‘Telework: my right, my decision’ campaign, which is highlighting the need for telework to be regulated. The European...
France: campaign for Covid-19 vaccines administered by occupational physicians to be launched shortly
France’s labour ministry has sent instructions to occupational health services (médecine du travail) as regards the implementation of the Covid-19 vaccination programme, the daily...
22 February 2021
Finland: parental leave reform announced to boost uptake by fathers
At a press conference held on 16 February, Finland’s Minister of Social Affairs and Health Aino-Kaisa Pekonen announced a reform of the country’s parental leave system, which would extend parental...
22 February 2021
Most viewed articles of the month on mind HR
What readers clicked on the most last month.
What readers clicked on the most last month.
1
Netherlands: new government seeks to “control” social costs
In his government policy statement to Parliament on 25 February, Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten announced several measures designed to "control" social costs. Notably, he proposed raising the...
2
Spain: a bill to regulate internships
On 3 March, the Council of Ministers approved the bill on the “Status for persons undergoing non-professional practical training in companies”. The text limits the number of interns a company can...
3
EU: co-legislators aim to pivot European Globalisation Adjustment Fund towards restructuring anticipation
On 25 February, the Council of the EU and the Parliament reached an agreement on the Commission’s proposed regulation to expand the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF). Under the...
4
Block to slash workforce by nearly half
The news. In his latest shareholder letter, Jack Dorsey, CEO of payment service provider Block (formerly Square), announced plans to slash the company’s workforce “by nearly half, from...