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Great Britain: two million civil servants strike against pension reform
High turnout.  British unions won a victory, claiming that two million civil servants went on strike on November 30 – government says 1.2.  According to the Department for Education, 62% of public...
Germany: 2.7 percent wage increase at RWE and beginning of talks on job cuts at EON
2.7 percent increase at RWE.  The agreement signed on November 29 by the IG BCE (chemistry) and Verdi (services) unions with RWE, second energy producer in Germany, still needs to be approved...
United States: American Airlines files for bankruptcy to cut wage costs
True, American Airlines isn’t doing well.  The group has lost over $11 billion since 2001.  The last financial report, published in October, points to $162M lost.  And forecasts for the end of...
30 November 2011
Italy: negotiations between Fiat and unions for the group’s new collective agreement start with an incident with the Fiom-CGIL union
Negotiations for the new national collective agreement of Fiat after it left Confindustria (see our dispatch No.  110720) is off to a rough start for the Fiom.  Its leader, Maurizio Landini, left...
Austria: 3.6% increase for 520,000 trade employees
After 4 meetings and 16 hours negotiating, the social partners in Austrian trade reached an agreement on wages.  If they had failed, the GPA-dip union threatened to strike, as the start of the...
Netherlands: draft reform to let businesses derogate from collective agreements when they have problems
The goal is to avoid bankruptcies with the recession announced for 2012.  The point is to make sure that the weakest businesses are not bound by the sectoral agreements negotiated annually.  The...
29 November 2011
Great Britain: government paves the way for simpler health and safety regulations
 Reducing businesses’ burden.  In early 2011, the government started reforming occupational health and safety (see our dispatch No.  110189), mainly focusing on simpler regulations.  Professor...
International: ICEM international union federation holds last Conference before the creation of the big industry federation
Gathered for three days in the Argentinean capital, the 800 delegates representing about 200 affiliated union organizations elected Senzeni Zokwana (NUM, South Africa) and Manfred Warda as...
Switzerland: towards minimum wage at Confederation level?
Right and amount.  “In Geneva, people were afraid to vote for this right without knowing its definite amount” explained Giangiorgio Gargantini, representative of the SIT, the interprofessional...
Netherlands: split rumors within the FNV union organization
Apparently, a major rebellion is taking shape among the Netherlands’ key union federation, the Netherlands Trade Union Confederation (FNV, of a protestant persuasion).  Its three largest members...
Austria: 4.15% wage increase in the temporary sector
4.15% and new minimum wages.  65,000 Austrian agency workers are going to receive a 4.15% wage increase on January 1, 2012, for one year.  Regular bonuses will also be increased in the same...
EU: premises of European social dialogue in ICT SMEs
social partners – Uni Europa for employees and PIN-SME for SMEs – have been meeting. They are hoping to lay down the foundation for European social dialogue in the future, in a field...
Romania: employers and unions sign social agreement to engage in social dialogue irrespective of the public powers
organization, and the five trade union confederations lay down the foundation for social dialogue since they couldn’t be heard by the government. Thus, at the end of October, they signed a...
Portugal: unions demand the resumption of dialogue with the government after successful general strike
General strike.  The CGTP (close to the Communist Party) and the UGT (moderate) organized, on Thursday, November 24, a 24-hour general strike to reject the austerity measures provided for in the...
Denmark: government introduces draft pension reforms in Parliament
Transposing the agreement of May 13 (see our dispatch No.  110337) signed between the parties of the previous government – made up of the Conservative Party (Venstre Konservative) and of the...
Finland: after several months of tough negotiations, sectoral agreements are reached on the basis of the framework agreement the social partners signed in October at national level
Employers accepted to negotiate in the end and, after a few bumps when the talks were suspended, a deal was stricken on October 13.  In addition to political and union pressure, another element...
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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
EU: insurance sector social partners commit to addressing violence and harassment at work
The news. The trade union UNI Europa Finance and the employers’ federations Insurance Europe, Amice and Bipar signed an addendum to their 2022 joint declaration on diversity and inclusion on...
18 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