News

Lithuania: government and social partners about to sign a far-flung national agreement
Drastic cost-cutting program. Initially, the text was mostly a plan to financially save the State and the social security from 2009 to 2012. it provided for layoffs and new wage cuts (8-10% in...
Portugal: first mandatory arbitration unfreezes negotiations in paper industry
Regulatory tool. The Mandatory Arbitration Court is called when all forms of negotiation failed. In this case, the decision rendered by the Arbitration Court, made up of professionals from the...
United Kingdom: Tories’ social agenda bothers unions
Outsourcing. “There will have to be cutbacks in public spending, and that will be painful. We will need to confront Britain’s culture of irresponsibility and that will be hard to take for many...
Italy: the general strike organized by the Fiom didn’t block negotiations for the renewal of metalworkers’ CCN
In a speech given during the demonstration organized in Milan on October 9, concluding the strike aimed at “defending the national collective agreement and democracy and against layoffs and...
EU: governments and social partners face the challenges of the green economy
Institutional and political diversity. At the level of the Member States, the political and institutional resources developed are different. Most countries created green government departments...
Netherlands: employers liable for burnout
This is a major victory for the FNV: the Court of Appeal of Bois-le-Duc ruled that an employer was liable for overworking one of its employees, insofar as there was no active policy for the...
Italy: first “Charter for equal opportunities and parity at work”
Diversity as a key to competitiveness and success. Directly based on French and German initiatives, the “Charter for equal opportunities and parity at work” (Carta per le pari opportunità e...
Netherlands: emergency measures to protect mailmen
New businesses working on the Dutch postal market (Sandd, Selektmail and others) are going to have to meet several requirements. First, they have to sign a labor contract with their employees...
Spain: paternity leave extended to four weeks in 2011
The only change introduced by the new law is an extension of the paternity leave paid by the social security. At the moment, the social security benefit has a limited duration of 13 days (15 days...
Germany: Ver.di union threatens to strike if negotiations with the Deutsche Post fail
Bonus in exchange for working time increase. For the management, there is no alternative to reducing personnel costs to face structural problems (increase in electronic exchanges) and economic...
Spain: employers and union organizations reopen dialog to unfreeze collective bargaining
The technical negotiators of the CEOE and Cepyme employers’ confederations and of the Workers’ Commission’s and UGT union federations created a joint workgroup (two representatives per union and...
Morocco: interview of Jamal Belahrach, chairman of the Committee on Employment and Social Relations at the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises
The goal is to build dialog with unions and no longer tripartite dialog with the government, which we used to do until now. We will discuss the problems faced by businesses and the labor code in...
Italy: independent unions specify the profile of the future “Italian confederation of basic unions”
“The union we need.” This was the slogan of the national assembly convened by the main independent unions which signed the “basic pact”: RdB, SdL Intercategoriale, Snater, Cub Informazione, Flaica...
Sweden: LO confederation refuses to sign the collective agreement on temporary work if the wage clause isn’t rediscussed
A new mode of wage calculation endorsed by all. After the negotiations started on march 24, 2009, the LO union and the Almega employers’ federation – powerful member of the Svenst Naringsliv...
Netherlands: judges forbid strike in public transportation
The Court of Amsterdam blocked the public transportation strike which should have been held this morning in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague. The judges judged that the negative impact of this...
Germany: the pay gap between east and west is still over 27%
Constant wage gap. Dedicated to “The Eastern Employment Market 20 Years after the fall of the Wall,” the DGB’s study shows that the living conditions of most eastern Germans definitely improved...
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
Netherlands: new government seeks to “control” social costs
In his government policy statement to Parliament on 25 February, Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten announced several measures designed to "control" social costs. Notably, he proposed raising the...
2
Spain: a bill to regulate internships
On 3 March, the Council of Ministers approved the bill on the “Status for persons undergoing non-professional practical training in companies”. The text limits the number of interns a company can...
3
Germany: launch of the “WE-Fair” alliance for binational training of skilled foreign workers
Germany continues to expand and diversify its initiatives to attract skilled foreign labour from outside the EU. In mid-March 2026, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development...
4
EU: co-legislators aim to pivot European Globalisation Adjustment Fund towards restructuring anticipation
On 25 February, the Council of the EU and the Parliament reached an agreement on the Commission’s proposed regulation to expand the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF). Under the...
5
Block to slash workforce by nearly half
The news. In his latest shareholder letter, Jack Dorsey, CEO of payment service provider Block (formerly Square), announced plans to slash the company’s workforce “by nearly half, from...