News

Italy: the city of Milan and unions sign an agreement on continuous dialogue
After the center-left won the municipal election last may, the Italian economic capital is launching a new season of union relations, with the watchwords “Dialogue, involvement, sharing.”  Mayor...
Italy: CGIL youth kick off the new campaign “Rights and no words”
The tone was set by a flash mob in downtown Rome on the morning of October 24th, where young activists dressed as cooks got a pan out and gave passers-by notes on which were sentences summarizing...
Great Britain: employers launch protocol removing disabled candidates’ recruitment barriers
Adjust recruitment.  The EFD is an association of employers who work on facilitating recruitment and businesses with people with a disability.  On October 20th, affiliated employers met and...
26 October 2011
EU: CSR is back on the social agenda
New definition.  The Commission starts with an updated definition and lists the actions it intends to take.  Now, CSR means “the responsibility of enterprises for their impacts on society,” a much...
United States: Facebook as the new partner of employment services
One year after the first complaint lodged by an employee fired because he criticized his employer on Facebook, the American government wants to use this social network as an instrument to combat...
Italy: Fiom-CGIL metalworkers’ federation gives positive report of the national Fiat/Fincantieri strike
With the motto “Democracy, contract, labor,” the Fiom organized the first national demonstration of Fiat’s workers on the Piazza del Popolo also involving the workers of Fiat and Fincantieri’s...
ThyssenKrupp: IG-Metall union wants to help the American USW union settle in the German steel plant in Alabama
Bullying measures.  This conflict isn’t new.  For several years now, the IG-Metall has been blaming the German steel giant (180,000 employees, €42 billion in sales in 2009/2010) of “riding...
International: creation of a trade union federation dedicated to telecom and information technology
On October 20th, in Mexico, about 170 representatives in the sector validate the merger between UNI Telecom and UNI IBITS, the two branches of the international service union, UNI Global. The new...
Great Britain: unions diversify strike tactics
In mid-October, Unison members at Barnet council in London held a second one-day strike against the proposed contracting out of services and job cuts. In order to get their message across to the...
Germany: Act on reducing working time to care for a dependent person to come into force on January 1, 2012
Reconcile work and caring for a dependent person.  Kristina Schröder (CDU) thinks that the new law is an “innovative system” meeting real needs.  Thus, the Minister claims that, out of the 2.4...
Greece: the law giving preference to company-level wage negotiations passed
Article 37 of the law introducing new austerity measures, which notably affects the signing of company agreements and their relation to sectoral collective agreements, is the one that made the...
24 October 2011
Belgium: new measures to combat social fraud in construction
Joint liability.  From now on, the contractor and subcontractor will be jointly responsible for paying minimum wage to the latter’s employees.  The contractor may ask for copies of the payroll...
Italy: Lombardy strikes deal with major universities to promote high training apprenticeship
Roberto Formigoni, President of Lombardy, signed, on October 18th, with the headmasters of the ten biggest universities in the region (Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano Bicocca, Università...
21 October 2011
Germany: anticipating coming difficulties, the social partners and the Democratic Party are asking for the extension of short-time working measures
Quick appeal to short-time working.  In two different declarations, the heads of German employers and trade unions asked that the Merkel administration extended the period during which businesses...
21 October 2011
Germany: the crisis of bonuses Opel gave its works council revives the debate on the remuneration of employee representatives
Infringement to the WC Act.  It all started with an article published on October 15th in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily (FAZ) headlined: “Opel bribes employee representatives.”  The...
20 October 2011
Spain: businesses say 2010 labor market reform is ineffective
85% of the people surveyed believe that the measures of the labor market reform, adopted in 2010 (see our dispatch No.  100669), brought about no significant changes to working conditions, and 60%...
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
Italy: Enel signs agreement to manage the effects of AI on work
An agreement signed at the end of July by the electricity company Enel (31,000 employees) and the unions Filctem-Cgil, Flaei-Cisl, and Uiltec is pioneering in the Italian energy sector. It aims to...
7 September 2026
2
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
3
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
4
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
5
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
6
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