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Areva: new European agreement on forecasting and anticipating employment and competences
To prepare employees to anticipate and manage their career evolution, the group commits, with this agreement, to provide employees with visibility on evolutions within careers and professions via...
Denmark: the working conditions of ‘atypical’ workers have been worsening for ten years
Agency workers in manufacturing, seasonal workers in agriculture, occasional on-call workers (løsarbejderen)… atypical contracts (atypisk ansættelsesform) allegedly concern half a million...
31 March 2011
Romania: talks started on the reform of collective industrial relations
This new bill is going to finalize the labor law reform undertaken by the Emil Boc administration (about the Labor Code reform, see our dispatch No.  110202).
Spain: agreement on flexible pay in Catalonian metal industry
The metal employers’ organization and the Workers’ Commissions and UGT unions agreed to establish an equal committee for the collective agreement, with mediation from the Department for Business...
Germany: 4.1% increase for chemical workers
Agreement difficult to find but differentiated.  It was after nine meetings at regional level and one at federal level that the chemistry partners, gathered in Bad Honnef, near Bonn, reached a...
EU: European social partners agree to negotiate the review of the working time directive but disagree on the extent of the negotiation
A wide scope for the ETUC.  First to publicly speak about the project, thus causing a stir, the ETUC immediately announced that it envisioned a wide review of the working time directive in order...
Italy: metal unions sign unitary agreement with Electrolux on restructuring program in Italy
The agreement signed between the Swedish multinational and the Fim-Cisl, Fiom-CGIL and Uilm-Uil: 
31 March 2011
Germany: large businesses refuse the government’s proposal to increase the proportion of executive women
Mrs. von der Leyen and Mrs. Schröder tried putting on a brave face after a meeting which should have led to a change of direction regarding the integration of women into the management of German...
31 March 2011
Sweden: since temporary work is progressing, unions and temporary agencies are looking for ways to work together
A development which might frighten unions.  Over the last 2010 quarter, temporary work agencies’ sales had increased by 42%, reaching, for the first time, SEK 5bn (€560M) and there should be...
Germany: is bringing tariff unity back with a law not such a good idea?
Bring tariff unity back with a law.  A federal government spokesman announced that the next mediation meeting between the government coalition parties would look at the question of bringing tariff...
Great Britain: shop workers’ union alarmed about the categorization of shops as low-risk workplaces
Context.  In preparation for the simplification of health and safety regulations (see our dispatch No.  110189) and following a consultation organized by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE)...
Romania: reforming welfare policy to encourage return to work
If the law is passed as such, welfare beneficiaries who refuse a job offer, a vocational training program (training or retraining) may see their welfare reduced or even completely removed.
Slovakia: permanent adoption of the law on maternity leave, equal treatment and EWCs
To avoid another reasoned opinion from the Court of Justice of the European Union for incomplete transposition of Directive 2002/71 on the principle of equal treatment for men and women as regards...
Great Britain: British Airways employees vote to back strike action to protest against the management’s retaliation against the strike movement in 2010
The original dispute of 2009 concerned staffing levels and the unilateral imposition of change relating to this. However, those issues have been largely settled, with the new issues emerging of...
29 March 2011
Spain: limiting appeal to temporary work in high voltage electricity
According to CCOO’s manufacturing federation, “it would have been bad both for the interests of maintenance and assembly employees and for the interests of the businesses themselves if risky work...
Italy: executive committee of the Cisl’s metal federation, Fim, defines priorities for 2011
The national executive committee of the Fim-Cisl, gathered in Rome on March 23rd, almost unanimously approved (3 abstentions) its strategy for the coming months, asking its secretariat to draw up...
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