News brief

United Kingdom: companies invited to submit their annual modern slavery statement to a central website
On 11 March, the UK government unveiled an online registry where companies can file their annual modern slavery statement, if they so wish. As a reminder, since 2015, commercial organisations with...
12 March 2021
Italy: an agreement paves the way for vaccinations in Lombardy’s industrial workplaces
On 10 March Italy’s Lombardy region together with the regional branch of the Confindustria employers’ organization and the national association of occupational physicians presented a...
12 March 2021
Germany: metal sector (teleworkers) warning strikes replacing traditional whistles and leaflets with cooking programs and get fit classes
One cup of olive oil, 2 onions, 2 red peppers,… unusually, these ingredients for a vegetarian recipe are to be found on the powerful German IG Metall (Baden-Württemberg)...
9 March 2021
Luxembourg: banking/insurance sector ALEBA union loses its representativeness
Since 2005, and until 05 March 2021, ALEBA had been the banking and insurance sector’s representative trade union. However during the most recent 2019 round of social elections that are held...
9 March 2021
United States: first collective bargaining agreement in the world of tech
It is the first collective agreement struck in the United States tech sector, outside of sales and delivery platforms. Just over a year after launching its campaign dubbed CODE (Campaign to...
5 March 2021
United States: President Joe Biden’s pro-union video amid the unionisation campaign at Amazon (Alabama)
Joe Biden is seen to be lending full support to the unionization campaign at Amazon’s Bessemer site in Alabama. In a video published on Twitter on 01 March (here), the Democrat president...
2 March 2021
Germany: metal industry negotiations become increasingly strained
With collective bargaining in Germany’s metal industry at a standstill, the IG Metall union has announced that a spell of warning strikes will run from 2 March 2021 until the end of the...
1 March 2021
Italy: Milan’s public prosecutor’s office orders 4 online platforms to hire more than 60,000 delivery personnel
The Milan public prosecutor’s office has decided to strike hard. Following an investigation that began in 2019 after a number of road traffic accidents involving bike delivery riders, the...
25 February 2021
Italy: only the occupational physician i.e. not the employer can collect employee vaccination information (Italian Data Protection Agency)
While getting inoculated against Covid-19 is not compulsory in Italy, an issue currently being debated among labor lawyers is whether or not employers can terminate the employment contract of...
Great Britain: large companies given a 6-month delay for publishing their ‘gender pay gap’ data.
After the government’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) cancelled the mandatory publication of gender pay gap data by large companies for 2020 (c.f. article No.11757), due to the...
24 February 2021
Great Britain: employers can legally refuse to hire job candidates who have not had a Covid-19 vaccine
UK Justice Secretary, Robert Buckland has acknowledged that employers can legally insist that new employees are vaccinated against Covid-19. The legality of the ‘no jab no job’ clause...
23 February 2021
EU: IndustriAll Europe launches a campaign to reposition the worker’s choice at the heart of telework
23 February is the launch date for IndustriAll Europe’s ‘Telework: my right, my decision’ campaign, which is highlighting the need for telework to be regulated. The European...
23 February 2021
France: campaign for Covid-19 vaccines administered by occupational physicians to be launched shortly
France’s labour ministry has sent instructions to occupational health services (médecine du travail) as regards the implementation of the Covid-19 vaccination programme, the daily...
22 February 2021
Germany: labour minister plans to increase financial support for companies hiring apprentices
Hubertus Heil, Germany’s Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, of the SPD party, has said in an interview that many companies are reluctant to offer apprenticeship positions due to...
22 February 2021
Germany: +2.7% increase in salaries over two years in the western Landers’ textiles and clothing industry
As 11 February dawned, and after 14 long hours of negotiations in Munich, Germany’s metalworkers’ union IG Metall together with the employers’ Textil + Mode confederation...
16 February 2021
Spain: four-day week pilot project launched
At the start of February, Spanish left-wing party Más País announced that the government had agreed to launch a pilot project, led by the minister of industry, to reduce the working...
15 February 2021
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
Import bans on forced labor products are multiplying
Under pressure from new US tariffs, many countries have presented texts in recent weeks to ban the import of products made with forced labor. A real breakthrough for workers' rights or a mere...
9 September 2026
2
Germany: a “simplification” proposal for the Corporate Governance Code
In early August, the Government Commission presented proposals to reform the Deutscher Corporate Governance Kodex (DCGK), Germany’s Corporate Governance Code. The proposals are primarily aimed at...
31 August 2026
3
France: EDF served formal notice for failure to comply with its sustainability due diligence obligations
The news. On 23 September, Greenpeace France announced that it had served EDF with a formal notice for failure to comply with its sustainability due diligence obligations due to the risks of harm...
24 September 2026
4
Slovakia: a bill to “clarify” personal data protection measures
The news. The Slovak government approved a bill on personal data protection on August 26, 2026. This text aims to clarify existing regulations regarding employees’ rights and...
7 September 2026