General Motors: carmaker reaches agreement with the UAW but EU Member States are divided on the fate of GM Europe
Agreement between management and UAW. Once more, General Motors obtained compromises from the United Auto Workers. After agreeing, in March, to bring the wage costs of the carmakers’ workers in...
Germany: after the agreement with the IG Metall, Schaeffler guarantees employment until mid-2010
agreement signed with the IG Metall in February, the car part manufacturer announced, in early may, that it wanted to part with 4,500 of its German employees. Those employees started breathing...
Netherlands: wage limits in hospitals
Planet Labor, May 29, 2009, No. 090586 – www.planetlabor.com
Italy: the national assembly of the Basic Unitary Confederation (Cub) allows the transformation of the union
Seventeen years after its foundation, the Cub, the largest independent union in Italy (over 706,000 members) started its metamorphosis. The 400 delegates of the National Assembly, held in Riccone...
Germany: chemistry union appoints future chair
Call in favor of industrial SMEs. Hubertus Schmoldt, who is still the chair, used the appointment to criticize, in an unusually strong way, the Federal Government’s support to industrial SMEs as...
Germany: 4.6% wage increase in construction
Planet Labor, May 26, 2009, No. 090566 – www.planetlabor.com
Netherlands: crisis digs a hole in union coffers
Planet Labor, May 26, 2009, No. 090565 – www.planetlabor.com
Germany: big bosses fight for their remuneration
A bill which “assaults” the economy. Discussed since February 2009, the bill on managers’ income in Germany is about to go into Parliament. Because of the economic crisis and coming elections...
Italy: 16th Cisl Congress under the sign of workers participation
Worker participation. The Cisl advocates a new labor humanism based on “responsible ethics” and “participative union relations” for a “new and balanced relation between capital and labor, calling...
Italy: first national assembly of the CGIL’s “labor chambers” and many local initiatives against the crisis
“Second Italy.” After the meeting, it came out that there is a “second Italy” as Gugliemo Epifani, CGIL general secretary, put it. Indeed, unlike the government with national unions, local...
Poland: social partners and government agree on anticrisis package
The anticrisis package, divided up into 13 points, was developed by the social partners in March (see our dispatch No. 090287) to counteract the negative impact of the crisis on employment. Based...
Italy: the collective agreement at Ilva adjusts to the crisis
The national unions Fim, Fiom and Uilm, the national union coordination of Ilva, “judged positively” the draft agreement reached with the management on May 13 and which will be submitted to the...
Finland: the Central Organization of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK) has a new president and turns a corner of its history
Great negotiating experience. Lauri Lyly studied to become an electrician and technician before getting a degree in corporate management. After being a staff representative at the Loviisa nuclear...
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...