News brief

Germany: large businesses are starting vaccination campaigns against the H1N1 flu for their employees
lies in vaccines against the influenza virus have been delayed in Germany, large businesses have decided to take matters in their own hands. A series of businesses started vaccinating their...
Romania: unemployment keeps increasing
unemployment has risen in Romania. It reached 7.1% in October, its highest level since 2003. This trend should continue as the country is plunged into a violent economic crisis. (Ref. 091066)...
United States: American unions more open to women
enter for Economic and Policy Research shows that average unionism has changed: there are more women, forty-year-olds and college graduates. (Ref. 091053) New gender for American unions. A study...
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...
Germany: offended by General Motors’ decision to keep Opel, unions become hostile
Russelsheim, Opel’s central works council and the IG-Metall called on the carmaker’s 45,000 European employees to take part in warning strikes to protest against the unexpected...
Hungary: decree forces publicly-held companies to publish wages and unemployment benefits of managing staff
9 on the Transparency of Publicly-held businesses forces the latter to publish certain information on supervisory and management staff. By Andrea Soos, Lawyer at the PRK Bellak & Partners law...
Germany: DGB calls for a reform of apprenticeship statistics
Employment Agency officially presents data on the apprenticeship market in 2008-09, the Confederation of German Trade Unions (DBG) presented, on October 7, 2009, the guidelines of a reform of...
Italy: food social partners sign a unitary collective agreement
agreement for the food sector is the first to be signed by all trade unions since the separate agreement on the reform of the conventional system. This recovered unity was seen as a strong signal...
International: international unions working so that the next G20 meeting focuses on employment
ed, G20 meetings have been increasingly important over the years. The summit to be held on September 24-25 will be the occasion to take the pulse of the global economic situation and the degree of...
Slovakia: new bill brings labor law in line with European directives on atypical workers
a bill to make Slovakian labor law comply with European laws on anti-discrimination against atypical workers. The bill follows warnings from the European Commission for failure to transpose the...
United States: Richard Trumka elected as the new head of the AFL CIO union
60, is the new leader of the AFL CIO, the powerful American 57-union federation representing 11 million members. He was elected in mid-September during the Pittsburg convention, replacing retiring...
Finland: negotiations for the renewal of collective agreements started
are preparing, with the crisis in the background, to renegotiate the collective agreements which will expire between January and April 2010, both in the public and in the private sector. In the...
EU: Eurofound’s 2008 industrial relations report
crisis. In its report on industrial relations in 2008, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Dublin) describes the first half of 2008 as continuous. Wage...
EU: European Commission agrees to EGF funding for Irish employees laid off by Dell
f the European Commission, announced, on September 19, that the EU was ready to pay for the reconversion program for Dell’s Irish workers – up to 14.8 million euro, via the European...
Poland: ITF launches support campaign for LOT workers
the polish airline were laid off and after the management unilaterally terminated a company agreement, the International Transport Workers’ Federation (IFT) launched an international...
Germany: construction union lays the foundations for “alternative” wage negotiations
ress (20th Gewerkschaftstag – September 14-17), the IG BAU announced a reorientation of its stands for future collective bargaining. On the menu: high wage increases and minimum claims above...
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...