Italy: the future of territorial social bargaining at the heart of the CGIL’s 2nd National Assembly of local structures
Social negotiation, the key to development.  The union points out that, in 2010, territorial social bargaining was often the only way to combat the “new inequalities” and meet the needs of workers...
Germany: unions declare war on abusive appeal to temporary work and are preparing the final attack to impose minimum wage by May 2011
War on precarious employment and for minimum wage.  “We declare war on abusive appeal to interim, precarious employment and the development of low-wage sectors.  It is high time we organized a new...
Spain: Nissan Barcelona employs support productivity program negotiated to stay in the run to the award of new pick-up trucks
70% of Nissan Barcelona’s 2,900 employees, divided into two sites, that of Zona Franca (2,700 employees) and that of Montcada (200) voted in favor of the cost reduction measures proposed by the...
Great Britain: the Recruitment and Employment Confederation and Jobcentre Plus join forces to help people back into work
Public-private partnership.  REC (Recruitment and Employment Confederation) chief executive Kevin Green and Darra Singh, chief executive of Jobcentre Plus, signed, on January 11th, a memorandum of...
13 January 2011
Denmark: DA employers’ organization evaluates health in its 2010 labor market report
Social costs of diseases.  DA counted that this increase in social beneficiaries because of illness – from 280,000 to 445,000 in 25 years – is costing society DKK 33 billion (over €4.4bn) in State...
13 January 2011
Spain: government and unions seek difficult agreement on pensions
Talks are stuck because unions are opposed to the government’s proposal to increase the professional career until 67.  However, it seems that the negotiators are determined, on both sides, to look...
12 January 2011
Austria: new “black book” of infringements to labor law sparks off controversy
In its 2010 “black book” of labor law infringements, the Chamber of Labor of Upper Austria shows that, in 2010 alone, its labor law experts gave nearly 235,000 legal advice interviews.  The AK...
12 January 2011
France: employers and union define a very busy social schedule for 2011
Following several bilateral meetings between the Medef employers’ organization and the five union federations (CGT, CFDT, CGT-FO, CFTC and CFE-CGC), and after an umpteenth 4-hour meeting at the...
Germany: IG-Metall supports UAW’s recruitment campaign in the American plants of German carmakers
A campaign to keep the UAW from hemorrhaging.  “We’ll be very, very aggressive and willing to spend a lot of money to defend workers’ rights to organize” warned the UAW’s new leader, Bob King...
Germany: one in three employees in the metal industry to receive a pay raise two months early
Wide movement of early wage increases.  Bosch, Audi, Volkswagen, Sachsen…, several large German businesses already announced, this summer, that they wanted to give the 2.7% wage increase...
Poland: ENEA S.A. unions object to EDF taking control of the company
“We maintain our negative opinion regarding the sale of participation to a company outside ENEA S.A.  We believe this sale is stupid and detrimental to the company” ENEA’s eight unions* declared...
Italy: with the Pomigliano company agreement, Fiat ends the first act of its strategy to question the Italian industrial relations system
After the signature of the separate agreement for the Mirafiori agreement on December 23rd (see our dispatch No.  110001), Fiat obtained, on December 29th, the signature of the Fim-Cisl, Uilm-Uil...
Morocco: legal system more transparent and modern, yet corruption continues
This accusation portal is the latest initiative developed by the Moroccan employers’ organization to fight against the plague of corruption.  Mustapha Moulay, in charge of the CGEM’s public...
Luxembourg: two recovery agreements
Index.  Employers, who terminated the agreement signed with unions on this matter, finally gave up the issue of the social index.  Thus, in keeping with the bipartite agreement negotiated with the...
Great Britain: annual working hours are gaining ground
The basic principle of annual hours is that, instead of defining working time on the basis of the standard working week, for example 37 or 39 hours, working hours are distributed out over the...
3 January 2011
Sweden: IF Metall signs highly disputed agreement on apprenticeship and occupational integration
An agreement accused of wage dumping. Pointing to the fact that Sweden has the highest youth unemployment rate in the Nordic countries, IF Metall signed an agreement aiming to facilitate young...
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...