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Italy: Milan province signs agreement with the social partners for extraordinary employment support program
Over 1,000 workers affected and a budget exceeding €6m; these are the important figures of the “agreement to support employment, the revival of the economic productive system and against the...
Portugal: government announces new severity measures to put public accounts back on their feet by 2013
On a diet. Portugal’s Prime Minister, José Socrates, announced an additional series of severity measures to speed up the return to balanced State accounts in 2013. The Stability and Growth Program...
Italy: five major SME organizations gather within the R.eTe.- Imprese Italia alliance
Give an “identity, a single voice and joint, therefore stronger, representativeness” to small and medium-size enterprises to “modernize the representation of businesses to modernize the Italian...
Spain: José Luis Zapatero explained his austerity program to the social partners
 The controversial points of the austerity program are the following:  
EU: what framework for CSR strategies in trade businesses?
Credibility. “The public credibility of the existing CSR schemes to a large extend depends on union acceptance and engagement” declared Alke Boessiger, Uni-Commerce representative, at the...
Luxembourg: after the tripartite talks failure, the debate on the social model in Luxembourg is postponed until the autumn
Index. On May 5th, the government proposed to adjust “the index” by modifying the shopping basket which is used as a reference for the indexation (neutralization of the regulated prices, of oil...
Romania: severe cut on public spending
Minus 25% on wages, minus 15% on pensions. The Romanian government just presented a drastic severity program to prevent the economy from losing control. Indeed, the measures implemented are...
Germany: working and pay conditions are still uneven in the east and the west
Between light and shade. 284-pages long, the 2010 edition of the WSI’s handbook (WSI-Tarifhandbuch) is dedicated to the evolution of collective agreements signed in eastern Germany. And the...
Brazil: Renault employees on strike to increase profit-sharing
The 3,500 metalworkers of Renault’s Curitiba factory, in the Parana State (south of the country), approved, on Monday, May 17th, the continuation of the strike launched on Friday, may 14th. The...
Great Britain: the train drivers’ union, Aslef, makes a bid to run the franchise for the East Coast rail
Aslef intends to make a bid as a people’s cooperative to show that the line can be better run than by a conventional profit-seeking company. The cooperative will be owned and run by its members in...
Belgium: new flexible work organization at Audi
Stick closer to demand. “When you start producing a new model, demand is extremely high, everyone wants the brand new fashionable car. After this production peak, usually, demand slows down, so...
Netherlands: burnout cases are escalating
According to the Netherlands Center for Occupational Diseases (Centrum voor Beroepsziekten, NCvB), an organization that publishes national statistics and organizes targeted monitoring campaigns...
Germany: IG-Metall and employers want to renew minimum wage in electrical engineering
A procedure renewed every time. This sector is mostly made up of SMEs, i.e. around 76,000 businesses employing nearly 310,000 people. They are mostly electrical engineers, IT experts and...
Russia: quick overview of industrial relations
Legislation really favorable to employees. The Labor Code adopted in 2001 guarantees “social partnership” via privileges granted to “pan-Russian” unions (covering a majority of the federal...
Italy: division at the end of the CGIL’s 16th Congress
The 16th CGIL Congress, organized in Rimini between May 5 and May 8 under the catch phrase “to defend work and free rights,” was tainted with the crisis, but not the economic crisis alone. Indeed...
Great Britain: union alliances and users associations to protect jobs in public services in the face of planned budget cuts
there is currently some elementary appreciation that to effectively fight the cuts and privatisation agenda that the new government will implement in the public sector alliances of the providers...
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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
Germany: launch of the “WE-Fair” alliance for binational training of skilled foreign workers
Germany continues to expand and diversify its initiatives to attract skilled foreign labour from outside the EU. In mid-March 2026, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development...
4
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...
5
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...