General Motors Europe: towards 3.500 job cuts at Opel
rmaker, GM, Opel’s employees are going to have to make major sacrifices to save their firm. Carl-Peter Forster, CEO of GM Europe – GM’s European subsidiary and Opel’s...
Brazil: new wage cut agreements in the metal and mining sectors
soared in January – from 6.8 to 8.2% – Brazilian unions accepted new agreements to cut wages and working time to avoid redundancies. (Ref. 090242) Vale Rio. Negotiations between the...
Belgium: mailmen fight for decent wages and labor
en on strike for three days, until today, March 4, to ask for an increase of their status and express concern over the evolution of their job and the way the company is preparing for the...
Ireland: ICTU threatens general strike
Tensions between the country’s largest union and the government have been brewing for weeks, leading up to a proposed suspension of last September’s national wage agreement (see our dispatch...
Germany: Deutsche Telekom and Ver.di call on a mediator to clear up their payroll differences
the fourth round of wage negotiations, the Deutsche Telekom phone company, and the Ver.di services union decided, on February 28, 2009, to launch a conciliation procedure and asked Henning...
Italy: the Council of Ministers approves the bill on the reform of the right to strike
0% of union members must vote for it. Failing this, if the strike call is voted by at least 20%, it will be necessary for them to obtain approval by 30% through a “prior compulsory...
General Motors Europe: European mobilization to save Opel and Saab
s of the American firm mobilized throughout Europe to protest against the announced restructuring. Opel/Vauxhall and Saab’s employees are the main targets, while GM is planning drastic cuts...
Germany: in western Germany, the textile industry threatens with warning strikes
at the 3rd negotiation round of February 26, 2009 was “intolerable”, the IG Metall union (metalworkers), which demands a 5.5% wage increase for employees in the textile and clothing...
Brazil: legal battle on dismissals within the Embraer aircraft company
for one week the 4.270 dismissals announced by the third aircraft manufacturer in the world, Embraer, until the conciliation meeting with unions. They ask the government to nationalize the...
Poland: the social partners keep talking about the crisis at their social summit
h No. 090194), a social summit held on February 25, at the request of President Lech Kaczynski, gathering unions, employers’ organizations, representatives from the government, local...
Bolivia: businesses threaten with thousands of dismissals after the minimum wage increase
against the presidential decree which commands a 12% minimum wage increase in 2009. A general wage increase in the private sector will depend on the results of the negotiation between the social...
Germany: the crisis threatens businesses’ employment pacts
A promise increasingly hard to keep. Yet, the longer the crisis last, the more businesses may not be able to keep their promise. “For the moment, many businesses are still using partial...
Spain: the merger between the metal and textile-chemistry federations of the Workers’ Commissions won’t happen
et closer, the CCOO’s two largest federation failed to unite. The leaders of the textile-chemistry and affiliate federation (Fiteqa) decided to end the process. They argue that methods and...
Netherlands: negotiations on measures to adopt against the crisis
ein Donner, Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, called for a total freeze of wages and pensions. This is one of the solutions to be proposed and discussed by the social partners. The Minister...
Netherlands: ING’s CEO won’t be paid in 2009
he ING bank, decided to do without remuneration for 2009. A decision will be made for his 2009 salary in 2010, when the policy on bank managers’ pay, currently discussed, is established...
25 February 2009
Denmark: the 3F building union presented wage propositions for posted workers
hed its wage propositions in preparation for a collective agreement on workers posted in Denmark. However, negotiations with employers are at a standstill. (Ref. 090208) 171.40 crowns (€23)...
Most viewed articles of the month on mind HR
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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