Belgium: government chooses its compromise offer to make up for the absence of cross-industry agreement
Application of the agreement.  After an umpteenth meeting with the social partners on Friday morning, premier Yves Leterme asked his government to start the implementation of the draft compromise...
21 February 2011
Germany: government agrees to the introduction of minimum wage in interim, surveillance and continuous education
Moderate increase of the Hartz IV allowance.  In February 2010, the Karlsruhe federal constitutional court forced the coalition parties to review the amount and calculation modalities of the Hartz...
Rhodia: renewal of the global agreements on social and environmental responsibility
This new renewal of the agreement, already renewed in 2008 (see our dispatch No.  080333), ads the addendum signed in 2010 which provided for the creation of a “global safety panel” whose mission...
Denmark: sponsorship, unions’ new “weapon” to recruit new members
Until the summer 2013, the AG København (AGK) handball team will bear, on their T-shirts, the names and logos of the Det Faglig Hus and Krifa unions.  Via an unheard-of alliance in Denmark, the...
Italy: 3rd national conference of call center workers warns about relocations in the industry
The SLC organized the 3rd national conference of call center workers on February 18-19 in Rome.  Three years after the stabilization procedures, which led to permanent contracts for nearly 25,000...
21 February 2011
Germany: Hartz IV regulations reforming unemployment insurance didn’t help reinstate long-term jobseekers
Last week, the Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur – BA) provided, for the first time, figures published in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, confirming that the people who receive the Hartz IV...
21 February 2011
Netherlands: negotiations open in the basic metal industry
Negotiations for the new collective agreement started on February 16th in basic metalworking, under the sign of “increasingly worsening deterioration” said Jan Berghuis, negotiator for the...
Italy: CGIL’s federation of Commerce, Filcams, launches campaign to regulate work on legal holidays
Increasingly, trade workers have to work on Sunday and legal holidays to meet the demand from retailing, small trades, towns, consumers, to the detriment of laws and collective agreements...
Germany: collective bargaining fails again at Deutsche Telekom, leading to three weeks of warning strikes
“It’s not possible that, until 2012, shareholders will receive annual dividends amounting to €3.4bn while the people who create this wealth leave empty-handed” declared Harald Dressler, one of...
Italy:Uilm held first “cross-territory” national assembly
With the slogan, “What have we done and what remains to be done?”, the Uilm gathered, on February 14-15 in Rome, nearly 200 local union leaders from all Italian provinces as well as the...
Austria: great internal retraining program in Austrian railway is having a hard time taking off
Trim administration and organize transfers.  The issue of personnel costs, i.e. 43% of total exploitation costs, is one of the ÖBB’s numerous problems and forces the public company, every year, to...
16 February 2011
Belgium: mediation on 2011-2012 cross-industry agreement failed
Employers’ support.  Will the Belgian government override the rejection of the FGTB, second largest union in the country?  The day of consultation on Monday, February 14th (see our dispatch No. ...
Germany: one plant at a time, Continental Automotive negotiates “derogatory agreements” way below the sectoral collective agreement
Continental is doing better…  The official communication of Continental Automotive is trying to look on the bright side.  Since the beginning of the year, Continental has been multiplying...
United States: interview of Wilma Liebman, chairman of the National Labor Relations Board
Wilma Liebman. The National Labor Relations Board is a federal government agency created by statute, the National Labor Relations Act, which was first enacted by Congress in 1935. It was amended...
Denmark: flexicurity system weakened by recent reforms
Highly mobile employees, secured income while unemployed and the certainty of finding a new job are the key elements of the Danish flexicurity system, based on a system of regulation of the labor...
15 February 2011
Spain: first election at Seat after controversial competitiveness agreement of 2009 strengthens UGT union
On February 10th, 12,781 employees were called to elect 119 representatives from the five sites of Martorell (Zona Franca) and El Prat (Llobregat), in the outskirts of Barcelona.  UGT is more...
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
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...
5
France: social partner talks extend far beyond contractual terminations
After a false start on 3 December, French social partners resumed talks on 7 January 2026 on potential changes to the unemployment insurance agreement, including the rules governing compensation...
12 January 2026
6
EU: banking sector social partners commit to combating violence and harassment
On 15 January, the trade union federation UNI Europa Finance and three employers’ associations in the banking sector signed a joint statement on preventing violence and harassment in the...