All articles

Sweden: a collective agreement making the temporary employment sector more attractive
Collective negotiations that came to a close in Sweden on 18 May confirmed the increasing importance of the temporary employment sector, especially given the undercurrent of unemployment in the...
Italy: sector collective bargaining mechanisms are defunct
Sector collective negotiations, which have governed Italy’s union-employer relations for over twenty years, would appear to have hit a roadblock. In the metals sector, deadlocked discussions over...
EU: the European Commission invites the Member States to assess the adequacy of their national employment rules in light of labor patterns in the collaborative economy
How best to react? On the one hand the collaborative economy presents ‘considerable potential for competitiveness and growth’ not forgetting jobs. On the other hand, this economy raises several...
3 June 2016
France: a majority agreement for renewing social dialogue is signed at Solvay
An imperative for harmonizing social dialogue following Solvay’s purchase of Rhodia, the majority agreement signed on 31 May between management at the chemicals group and the union bodies CFDT and...
Germany: the social partners together with the government recommend setting up ‘business laboratories’ to test mobile working
On 31 May the working group on ‘a digital working world’, chaired by Andréa Nahles, the Minister for Employment and Social Affairs and Jörg Hoffmann, the president of the IG Metall union, and...
Germany: chemicals and energy sector negotiations get started
Following the recent conclusion of agreements in the metals and construction sectors it is now the turn of the important chemicals and energy sectors to renegotiate their sector agreements. At the...
A study on management perspectives on European Works Councils
What do business leaders think of European Works Councils (EWCs)? What value-added do these bodies bring? Are EWCS cost-efficient? These were the questions to which researchers at the Belgian...
EU: advocate general Kokott delivered the opinion that banning the wearing of an Islamic headscarf at work can be justified on the basis of a company’s policy of neutrality
Advocate general Kokott delivered an opinion on 31 May inviting the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to rule that banning the wearing of the headscarf in the workplace can be...
31 May 2016
Switzerland: On 05 June, Swiss citizens will decide whether or not to establish an ‘Unconditional Basic Income’
On Sunday 05 June 2016, Switzerland’s citizens will vote on an issue raised by the BIEN-CH association (Basic income Earth Network) to approve or not the introduction of an unconditional basic...
United States: the end of unprecedented strike action at Verizon
Forty–four days of strike action at the US East-Coast telecommunications giant Verizon are set to come to a close following a guarantee to create 1,500 well paid US based jobs.
France: rising protest levels against labor law reform reach a new level
The eighth day of demonstrations on Thursday 26 May calling for the withdrawal of the draft Labor Code reform drew between 153,000 (police data) and 300,000 (union data) participants. Protest at...
Germany: the Federal Labor Tribunal allows certain supplementary pay elements to be taken into account in the minimum wage
On 25 May 2016, the Federal Labor Tribunal rejected a plea that a Christmas bonus and a holiday bonus, both of which had been scheduled for payment before the minimum wage had been made mandatory...
27 May 2016
Great Britain: the Government considering ways to change the steel industry’s pensions in a bid to save Tata Steel
No purchaser of Tata’s British interests is willing to take on the financial consequences of the employees’ pensions liabilities. Legally dissociating Tata Steel from the British Steel Pension...
Germany: the government adopts an ‘historic’ draft law on the integration of migrants
‘Assist and insist’ is the primary principle underlying the ‘draft law on integration’ for asylum seekers that the Council of Ministers adopted on 25 May. This is a compromise text struck between...
26 May 2016
Hungary: government reinstates Sunday opening
Hungarians will once again be able to go shopping on Sundays. An amendment was adopted via the emergency procedure and undoes the current ban on Sunday shopping; a political measure that had...
Turkey: coal miners stage a hunger strike deep in their mines in protest at unpaid wages
On 18 May eighty-five coal miners in northwest Turkey went down their mine and started a hunger strike to demand that their wages, which have been outstanding since the start of the year, be paid...
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
Italy: Enel signs agreement to manage the effects of AI on work
An agreement signed at the end of July by the electricity company Enel (31,000 employees) and the unions Filctem-Cgil, Flaei-Cisl, and Uiltec is pioneering in the Italian energy sector. It aims to...
7 September 2026
2
Italy: artificial Intelligence on the menu of Barilla’s new company agreement
Prior consultation with trade unions on innovations related to artificial intelligence, strengthened training, and progress on parenthood: these are the main new features of the agreement signed...
2 September 2026
3
France: final document on the work of the Labour, Employment and Pensions Conference
After six months of discussions between French social partners, the guarantors of the Labour, Employment and Pensions Conference submitted the conclusions of the discussions to the Prime Minister...
17 September 2026
4
Germany: working time dispute between Mercedes and the IG Metall Union
The news. At the beginning of September, Mercedes-Benz asked employee representatives and the IG Metall union to agree to an increase in the weekly working time from 35 to 40 hours, without any...
16 September 2026
5
France: Bayer puts female health and inclusive parenthood at the centre of its equality policy
In a new agreement on gender equality highlighted by mind RH, Bayer commits to strengthening its parenthood policy. Furthermore, the company is anticipating pay transparency and introducing...
25 September 2026
6
Germany: major day of union action in the automotive industry ahead of collective bargaining
A few weeks before the start of collective bargaining in the German metalworking sector, the IG Metall trade union mobilised nearly 175,000 workers across more than 200 industrial sites on 21...
22 September 2026