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Spain: the works council of Opel’s Figueruelas site rejects Magna’s plan and calls for a strike
The El Periodico daily in Aragon pointed out that 25,000 direct or indirect jobs depend on Opel Spain and launched a campaign entitled “For employment at Opel.” It says that the Spanish site...
Spain: metalworkers call for a strike on October 28
Sectoral consequence of the national fracture in social dialog. This call is the implementation of the strategy unions designed last summer after social dialog attempts failed and after they...
Netherlands: coalition in power presents pension reform
Gradual increase of retirement age. On October 16, the Christian Democrats and the Labor Party, in power, reached a compromise on the increase in retirement age. It will go from 65 to 66 in 2020...
Italy: separate agreement for the renewal of the metalworking collective agreement
“One of the smoothest agreements in history.” This is how Roberto Santarelli, Federmeccanica’s chair, qualified the separate agreement for the renewal of the metalworking CCN, signed on October 15...
Hungary: decree forces publicly-held companies to publish wages and unemployment benefits of managing staff
9 on the Transparency of Publicly-held businesses forces the latter to publish certain information on supervisory and management staff. By Andrea Soos, Lawyer at the PRK Bellak & Partners law...
Great Britain: two-day national strike in postal sector
Mail will be totally blocked for several days. The CWU said that it made an offer to Royal Mail’s management, which the latter rejected without even looking into it. The company said the strike...
Portugal: two large employers’ associations merge to be more representative
Already contemplated in the past but never carried out, the merger between the AEP and AIP answers the need for organizational modernization and the “current national and international economic...
GDF Suez: EWC members elect a Belgian member as their secretary
On October 13, during the first meeting of GDF Suez’s EWC, recently created (see our dispatch No. 090489), the structure’s staff representatives elected a Belgian representative as secretary. His...
Spain: unions and Magna failed to reach an agreement on the future of Opel’s Figueruelas site
While the Unite British union concluded an agreement with Magna to maintain the Luton and Ellesmere sites operational with no major job cuts, Spanish unions are still trying to bargain with magna...
Great Britain: law transposing temporary work directive postponed to October 2011
Help businesses recover from the economic crisis. The European directive on agency workers gives them more rights, including the right to equal pay with permanent workers after 12 weeks in a...
United States: agreement reached between Ford and the UAW
Wage freeze and no-strike provision. The management of the carmaker and the management of the United Auto Workers (UAW) have reached a new tentative agreement. Three key measures were approved: 
EU: joint declaration by the European Metalworkers’ Federation and the European Association of Automotive Suppliers on the future of the automotive industry
This statement is the result of a one-year project co-funded by the European Commission, studying good practices in the sector to adjust to change. “EMF and Clepa see the current situation in the...
Belgium: new banking sectoral agreement
The La CNE, SETca, LBC and CGSLB for unions and the Fedelfin for employers signed, on October 9, the 2009-10 banking sectoral agreement. Negotiations were held in May and September as part of the...
Italy: unions and employers in the temporary work sector agree on a single sectoral collective agreement
Single CCN. On October 9, Alleanza Lavoro signed with Assolavoro (Confindustria) and the Nidil CGIL, Alai Cisl and Uil CPO unions an agreement “restoring conventional unity” in the temporary work...
Germany: massive appeal to short-time working as an obstacle to businesses’ competitiveness
High “leftover costs.” An IAB study shows that, since the crisis began, businesses introduced short-time working requests for over 3.4 million employees. In June 2008, over 1.4 million German...
Portugal: outsourcing sector signs code of conduct
Competence, transparency and better working conditions. The signatories accepted to only commit for service contracts for which they are directly competent. They also adopted a confidentiality...
14 October 2009
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