Great Britain: Vestas and Linamar, two long conflicts, two different outcomes
In mid-July 2009, Vestas announced the closure of its two plants in the Isle of Wight, employing some 600 workers and citing the restrictive nature of planning laws in Britain as having choked off...
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...
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1
France: austerity measures proposed in social security financing bill for 2026
Limits on sick leave, the end of social security exemptions for apprentices, and the introduction of additional birth leave: the 2026 social security financing bill, presented to parliament on 14...
16 October 2025
2
Netherlands: ING cites AI as it plans to cut around 950 jobs
Dutch bank ING has informed the employment agency UWV that it may cut around 950 jobs by 31 December 2026. In its notification on 20 October, the lender said the planned reductions stem partly...
30 October 2025
3
Romania: collective agreement extended to entire insurance sector
On 3 November, Romania’s National Tripartite Council for Social Dialogue approved the extension of the collective labour agreement signed on 23 May by the Confederation of Employers in the...
4
United Kingdom largely retained within scope of EWCs despite Brexit, study shows
A study published this month by the Institute for Economic and Social Research, the French trade union research organisation, examined how the involvement of British representatives in European...
5
Italy: new collective agreement for managers in tertiary sector
On 5 November, the ManagerItalia union and the employers’ association Confcommercio renewed the collective agreement for managers in Italy’s tertiary, distribution and services...
6
Germany: legal battle at Tesla ahead of works council election
The Frankfurt/Oder labour court has postponed a mid-November hearing in the case between the IG Metall union and Michaela Schmitz, employee representative and head of the works council at the...