Spain: social partners in favor of the introduction of short-time working based on the German system
The idea of replacing layoffs by working time cuts with wage compensation from the State was Ignacio Fernandez Toxo’s, leader of the Workers Commissions (CCOO). “Employees in ailing businesses...
Netherlands: new light metal collective agreement postpones wage increases to 2011
Increases postponed to 2011. The General Employers’ Association (Algemene Werkgevers Vereneging – AWVN), affiliated with the Confederation of Netherlands Industry and Employers (VNO-NCW), the...
Gras Savoye: agreement establishing the EWC
Scope and significant change of the legal structure. The new EWC affects all EU countries where the group has at least one subsidiary “whose accounts and annual totals are included in mandatory...
Denmark: SAS airlines failed to reach an agreement with all unions on cost-cutting program
After concluding, earlier this year, an agreement with unions on a cost-cutting program amounting to 1.5 billion Swedish crowns (almost €137 million – see our dispatch No. 090077), SAS presented...
Netherlands: TNT Post proposes alternative to unions to revive negotiations
Harry Kooistra Director of TNT Post, proposed, in a letter sent on Saturday, a new program. To get the negotiations on the future collective agreement and a social plan presented as unavoidable...
Great Britain: interim agreement between Royal Mail and the CWU pauses the postal conflict
Truce. After several weeks of conflict, the management of Royal Mail, the British post, and the Communication Workers’ Union, CWU, have buried the hatchet. A transitional agreement negotiated last...
Italy: social partners in the paper industry sign a unitary agreement for the renewal of the national collective agreement
War figure in spite of a unitary agreement. The unitary agreement for the renewal of the paper industry’s CCN was signed on November 4 in Rome by the Assocarta employers’ organizations and the...
Germany: IG-Metall union recommends flexible collective agreements to save jobs
e bargaining for the 3.4 million employees in metalworking and electronics, in March 2010, the key local units of the IG-Metall unions already presented several systems to save jobs. Thus, in...
Volkswagen: global Charter on employee representatives’ participation rights
This Charter was negotiated by the Global VW Works Council and the management. In its preamble, the Charter values performance and participation, which create the company’s culture. The first...
Denmark: analysis of the impact on the Danish system of the conflict caused by the renewal of collective agreements in the public sector in 2008
During the biggest conflict in the history of the public sector, in the spring of 2008, as part of the renewal of sectoral collective agreements, several experts were concerned about its...
5 November 2009
EDF: EWC mobilizes for EDF Polska’s employees
The “Trèfle” project affecting the EDF Polska subsidiary provides, in the long run, for the merger of the different entities making up this company. It should lead to over 300 job cuts and the...
Austria: metalworking negotiations stuck on flexible working time
Flexibility in exchange for wage increase. “Anything’s possible, because the situation hadn’t been that stuck in a long time” declared Hermann Haslauer, negotiator for employers, the day after the...
Germany: Transnet and GDBA to merge to create a new rail union
Two unions, two sizes. The two unions, which have been working together since 2005, want to merge to better deal with the “drastic changes” which shook up the transport sector, the possible...
Belgium: rail strike on Thursday, November 5 to protest against B-Cargo’s restructuring plan
No train will go from Paris to Amsterdam on November, Thalys already announced. Belgian railroaders are opposed to the restructuring at B-Cargo, the cargo unit of the National Railway Company of...
Spain: agreement on the new sectoral collective agreement for Pontevedra’s metalworkers
On November 2, the Asime, Atra and Feca employers’ organizations and the two majority unions, UGT and CCOO (Workers’ Commissions), ratified the agreement, but the CIG nationalist Galician union...
Lithuania: national agreement strengthens cooperation with the social partners
In spite of the revolt of independent organizations and unions in the public sector (teachers’ unions, medical professions, police unions, see our dispatch No. 090956), the Confederation of...
Most viewed articles of the month on mind HR
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What readers clicked on the most last month.
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
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...
6
France: generative AI and older workers central to BPCE’s skills management strategy
On 17 July 2025, BPCE and its trade unions signed a second agreement on jobs and career management within the banking group. The text places generative artificial intelligence at the core of its...