Brazil: unions say government’s manufacturing recovery program is not enough
20 percent cut to employers’ contributions.  On April 3, President Dilma Rousseff presented a program to boost the industry – the Brazilian sector with the smallest growth, +0.3 percent in 2011 as...
Slovenia: agreement on guidelines for the negotiation of the Social Contract 2012-2016
The Guidelines interestingly state that the fundamental issues of the labour law legislation, labour market, health and pension insurance and wages system in the public sector will be subject to...
Great Britain: London Underground secures social truce for the Olympic Games this summer
The Evening Standard, the main newspaper in London, believed the deal could see drivers earning up to £6,000 in bonuses for working during the Olympics. It quoted a senior source from Aslef, the...
Austria: first spring bargaining agreement in the textile, electrical and electrical engineering industries provide for 3.75-4.5 percent increases
The negotiations started mid-march in textile and the electrical and electrical engineering industries (see our dispatch No.  120187) were carried out swiftly since, in both cases, an agreement...
Total: amendment to the European agreement on assistance in creation, purchase or development of SMEs
New sites included.  On March 28, 2007, Total and the EMCEF (mining, chemistry and energy), FECCIA (managers in the chemical industry) and FECER (managers in energy and research) European trade...
Sweden: SEKO union joins National Employment Agency and five telecoms to set up technician training for young jobseekers
A crying need.  The telecom industry has been growing a lot in the past few years, becoming an extremely dynamic sector and playing a major part in the country’s economic development.  Therefore...
Belgium: unions are campaigning for the May 7 ballot
Candidates race.  On March 27, the General Confederation of Liberal Trade Unions of Belgium (CGLSB) was proud to announce a 17 percent increase in the number of candidates which will represent it...
Sweden: trade employers’ organization signed new wage agreement with supervisory staff representatives but is facing a call for strike for employees
Satisfactory agreements for managers and graduates.  The new wage agreement signed between Svensk Handel and the Unionen and Akademikerförbunden union organizations applies to executives, store...
Germany: the German army and businesses exchange staff more and more often
On March 14, at the Köln-Wahn barracks, Cassidian and the Luftwaffe signed a cooperation agreement.  It applies the advice contained in the directive released on February 1 by the German Ministry...
Austria: 3.5 percent wage increase in banking
On April 1, the wages of the 80,000 banking employees went up by 3.5 percent in average.  This is the result of the wage agreement signed between the GPA-djp union (private sector employees) and...
Germany: 6.3 percent increase for public workers to influence other sectoral negotiations
Who can beat 6.3 percent?  It took 40 successive hours of negotiations for Frank Bsirske, leader of the Verdi union, the representatives of civil service employers, the Federal Minister of the...
International: overview of global union alliances
“United stand.”  A direct consequence of globalization, union action transcends borders in the form of international union alliances.  The last to date, the Ikea Global Union Alliance...
Germany: unions’ globalization strategy helped by Bob King, leader of the American auto workers’ union, joining Opel’s board
of the American United Auto Workers (UAW), will become a full member of the supervisory board of Adam Opel GmbH. Sources tell Planet Labor that both General Motors and the German IG-Metall union...
Germany: 10,000 employees fired by Schlecker causes political and ideological turmoil beyond the trade industry
10,000 compulsory redundancies.  Receiver Arndt Geiwitz, who took in his hands the fate of Schlecker, which announced that it was closing 2,200 stores after the judicial settlement, postponed, in...
30 March 2012
United States: German personalities campaign against T-Mobile USA, a Deutsche Telekom subsidiary, accused of anti-union practices
On Wednesday, March 28, a group of German academics, lawyers, and union and political representatives published, in the New York Times, an open letter to “T-Mobile USA and other US subsidiaries of...
30 March 2012
Spain: government maintains reforms, social unrest grows
Demonstrations took place in several towns across the country with the catchphrase: “Quieren acabar con todo” – they want to end it all.  The El Pais daily says 170,000 marched through Madrid...
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
Oliver Dietrich (IG Metall): “The advent of AI can be a means of deepening social partnership within companies”
In Germany, trade unions want to influence how AI is deployed in companies. Oliver Dietrich is an AI project manager at the regional office of the IG Metall trade union in North Rhine-Westphalia...
2
EU: social partners split over competitiveness and action on job quality
The European Trade Union Confederation and BusinessEurope have published their response to the consultation document on the European Commission's upcoming EU quality jobs initiative. The two...
4 February 2026
3
Germany: collective bargaining negotiations begin in chemical industry
Collective bargaining talks in Germany’s chemical and pharmaceutical industries are due to open this week, covering nearly 580,000 employees across around 1,700 companies. With the sector facing...
3 February 2026
4
Germany: standoff over national plan to boost collective bargaining
Under the EU Adequate Minimum Wages Directive, Germany is required to produce an action plan to boost collective bargaining coverage. That plan has stalled, however, after being blocked by the...
9 February 2026
5
Italy: new generational renewal agreement penned at UniCredit
The agreement signed on 30 December by UniCredit, Italy’s second-largest banking group, with the Fabi, First-Cisl, Fisac-Cgil, Uilca and Unisin trade unions aims to continue generational...
6
ENI incorporates just transition and AI into global agreement
On 13 January, Italian energy group ENI renewed its global agreement on international industrial relations, corporate social responsibility and the just transition with Italian unions CGIL, CISL...
5 February 2026