Great Britain: unions are choosing candidates for the leadership of the Labour Party
There are currently fifteen unions affiliated to the Labour Party, comprising some 3.5 million members. The unions are the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (Aslef)...
Great Britain: unions divided over the opening of talks with the government
The General Council is comprised of around thirty members of the affiliated unions, some of which have seats automatically because of their size (over 200,000 members) and others from the smaller...
Etex: construction material firm signs health and safety on the workplace Charter
Procedures. Present in many European countries, Etex is a Belgian company specialized in construction materials. In June, it adopted a charter to better protect its workers and the environment...
Italy: Fiom-CGIL central committee elects new national secretariat
Gathered in Rome on July 19-20, the central committee of the Fiom elected its new national secretariat. The latter is composed of Maurizio Landini – general secretary and signatory of the document...
Finland: unions and employers relatively happy with collective negotiations, in spite of the recession due to the financial crisis and many conflicts
Unions are satisfied. The SAK union confederation considered that, in spite of particularly complicated economic conditions, the outcome is quite positive. In the fall 2009, collectively-agreed...
Spain: unions object to the decree-law amending savings banks
Candido Mendez, UGT general  secretary, and Ignacio Fernandez Toxo, his counterpart at CCOO, rejected what they call the “penetration of banking services” into savings banks, in a process which...
Portugal: wage negotiations at Volkswagen’s Lisbon factory (Palmela) in a context of revived production
Raise. VW’s working committee in the Palmela factory (near Lisbon) is asking for a 3.8% wage increase for the 3,000 employees of the factory, with a “limit” €40 increase for all. Negotiations will...
Great Britain: engineering construction industry still boiling
The specific grievances concerned the importation of non-domiciled workers to undertake work in the industry while domiciled workers were without work and on rates of pay below the industry norm...
Italy: supplementary health insurance increasingly wins over wage increases
More and more businesses introduce supplementary health care plans among mutual insurance companies, insurance companies, corporate funds and sectoral funds for their employees. Luxottica, the...
Greece: unhoped for agreement on a new national agreement for three years
Content of the agreement. This agreement, retroactive on January 1, 2010, provides for a wage freeze in 2010, a minimum 1.5% wage increase in 2011 and 1.7% in 2012, based on the percentage of...
Austria: government to introduce controls and fines to fight wage dumping
€240 million shortfall. As in Germany, where the idea of minimum wage to limit cheap competition from workers from the new Member States is spreading, Austria is trying to protect itself from the...
France: interview of Marcel Grignard, CFDT deputy national secretary
the pension reform, which is getting all the attention from the press and politicians in France because of the country’s news, the CFDT’s congress (in Tours from June 7th to June 11th...
Greece: the drop in tourism worsens the economic situation and will also have an impact on the social situation in the fall
Cancellation wave. A government spokesman explained that, in May, “there were thousands of cancellations, with tens of thousands of euros lost each eek. Images of broken shop windows, or of...
Italy: tourism social partners sign a unitary agreement for the renewal of the sectoral collective agreement
Tourism social partners – Filcams CGIL, Fisascat-Cisl and Uiltucs-Uil for unions, AICA and Federturismo (affiliated with Confindustria) for employers – signed, on July 9th, a unitary agreement for...
Germany: collective negotiations started in the rail sector and promise to be complicated, and risky for users
The issue of containing “social and wage dumping” caused by the arrival of private rail operators in Germany is going to prevail during the collective negotiations which started on Monday, July...
Italy: Fiat launches the industrial program for its Pomigliano d’Arco site
After two weeks of “suspense,” on Friday, July 9th, Fiat officially launched its restructuring program, “Fabbrica Italia.” During a meeting with the leaders of the Fim-Cisl, Uilm-Uil, Fismic and...
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
France: Bayer puts female health and inclusive parenthood at the centre of its equality policy
In a new agreement on gender equality highlighted by mind RH, Bayer commits to strengthening its parenthood policy. Furthermore, the company is anticipating pay transparency and introducing...
25 September 2026
2
Germany: Volkswagen cancels almost all collective bargaining agreements signed with IG Metall
The Volkswagen brand announced on 30 September that it is terminating 10 of its 13 internal collective bargaining agreements, effective 31 December 2026. The announcement, which the carmaker...
1 October 2026
3
France: final document on the work of the Labour, Employment and Pensions Conference
After six months of discussions between French social partners, the guarantors of the Labour, Employment and Pensions Conference submitted the conclusions of the discussions to the Prime Minister...
17 September 2026
4
Germany: Employers’ representatives seek to limit the rights of works councils
The Employers' Federation of German Employers' Associations (Bundesvereinigung der Deutschen Arbeitgeberverbände - BDA) published a report at the end of September in which it proposes a...
5
Germany: working time dispute between Mercedes and the IG Metall Union
The news. At the beginning of September, Mercedes-Benz asked employee representatives and the IG Metall union to agree to an increase in the weekly working time from 35 to 40 hours, without any...
16 September 2026
6
Germany: major day of union action in the automotive industry ahead of collective bargaining
A few weeks before the start of collective bargaining in the German metalworking sector, the IG Metall trade union mobilised nearly 175,000 workers across more than 200 industrial sites on 21...
22 September 2026