National industrial relations
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Germany: failed agreement on the introduction of the 35-hour week in the former East Germany’s metal sector
Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin wall, Germany is still divided. After an arduous seven-week strike in 1984, the 35-hour working week was secured in 1995 in former West Germany’s...
25 June 2019
Italy: innovative agreement struck at Luxottica
On 21 June, Italian eyewear company Luxottica (merged with Essilor) and trade unions Filctem-Cgil, Femca-Cisl, and Uiltec-Uil signed a particularly innovative company agreement (here) that will...
25 June 2019
United Kingdom: a non-European group may change the country of its representative agent for negotiating an EWC
In a decision passed on 18 June (here), a Central Arbitration Committee in the UK declared that the leadership of a non-European company, in this case Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE), may...
24 June 2019
ILO: Centenary Declaration sets human-centred agenda for the organisation
The 1944 Declaration of Philadelphia opened with these strong words: labour is not a commodity. It also established a series of primary objectives for the International Labour Organization –...
24 June 2019
Switzerland: what are the repercussions of the women’s strike of 14 June? (in brief)
Can the impact of the massive ‘women's strike’, which brought nearly 500,000 Swiss people onto the streets of the country on 14 June, be assessed? In the eyes of Unia, the largest trade union in...
24 June 2019
Germany: port operator Eurogate negotiates landmark automation agreement
Social partners at Eurogate, one of the largest port operators in Germany, with around 5,000 employees, penned a collective agreement “on the future” at the end of 2018, following several years of...
17 June 2019
United States: UAW union rejected again by workers at Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee
Once again trade unionists from the United Auto Workers (UAW) have been defeated in elections at the Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, a city in the southern state of Tennessee. The result came...
17 June 2019
Germany: IG Metall warns that many companies have no strategies to handle the major industrial changes ahead
During a press conference held in Frankfurt on 05 June, and on the occasion of the presentation of its ‘Transformation Atlas’, Germany’s IG Metall trade union has launched a ‘Red Alert’ over the...
6 June 2019
Argentina: annual salary agreements for the commerce, oil and metallurgy sectors
With inflation rampant, social partners from Argentina’s key economic sectors including commerce, oil, and metallurgy, are reaching a series of annual salary agreements. Salary revaluations have...
5 June 2019
United States: tech employees are stirring themselves
Until now IT programmers, designers, and all different types of software editors have been quite dismissive of collective action. Being well paid they don’t really see how collective agreements...
28 May 2019
Norway: joint union-business work project to contribute to national reflection on AI and ethical digitalization at work
Negotia, the largest member of YS, Norway’s third biggest union confederation, has jointly launched a shared reflection with Telenor, the country’s largest telecommunications company, on AI and...
27 May 2019
Argentina: Assessment of the Macri government’s social policy
Six general strikes in under four years. The call by the central CGT union (The General Confederation of Labor) for strike action on Wednesday 29 May marks the sixth strike since President...
27 May 2019
Switzerland: is the nationwide women’s strike set for 14 June actually within the law?
At the end of March 2019 a multitude of women’s’ networks launched a call to strike action: ‘Frauen Streik’ setting the symbolic date of 14 June as the day for the strike. The movement comprising...
23 May 2019
Italy: major parties adopt anti-austerity stance ahead of European elections
Despite significant divergence in their respective views on Europe, the main parties in Italy appear to agree on one thing: enough of austerity. In a country that is yet to return to its GDP...
21 May 2019
France: debate over the CGT’s international strategy during its 52nd Congress questions the ‘hyper-institutional’ approach of both the ITUC and ETUC and takes a first step towards the WFTU
The WFTU has had a chequered past. Established in 1945, it was primarily made up of unions affiliated with or sympathetic to communist parties. In 1995 the CGT took the decision to exit the...
16 May 2019
Germany: CJEU ruling on mandatory working time records puts government under pressure to reform domestic legislation
The ruling handed down on 14 May 2019 by the CJEU on the requirement to record daily working times (c.f. article No. 11127) has sparked a backlash in Germany for which there are several reasons...
16 May 2019
Our mind news
France: La Poste to launch negotiations for an AI agreement
Following the lead of firms such as Axa, Syensqo globally, and more recently CDC Habitat, La Poste group management will open negotiations on an AI regulation agreement during the first half of...
5 March 2026
Crédit Agricole is to adopt stricter rules on remote work from mid-March onwards. The rules will be tightened for employees, but the maximum number of days working remotely will remain unchanged.
29 January 2026
The three representative trade unions at Orange France have until 10 December to validate an agreement on gender equality, work–life balance and anti-discrimination measures. While the text...
8 December 2025
In 2025, for the first time, the universal registration documents of major European companies contain the sustainability reporting required by the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive...
31 October 2025
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: 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
5
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
6
UK: duty for employers to inform workers of their right to join a trade union postponed to 1 January 2027
The news. On 25 September, the British government published its response to a consultation launched on 23 October on the duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union. The...
1 October 2026