Trade union shop stewards employed by the Wood Group in Scotland received this year’s Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) organising award, in April, from First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. The award recognised their role in recruiting and organising workers on Shell oil platforms in the North Sea, successfully resisting a threatened 30% cut in wages and allowances.

The European Federation of Building and Woodworkers (EFBWW) has launched a website offering details of construction workers’ wages and rights across Europe. The site, available in all 28 EU languages, also provides trade union contacts in different countries who can help with assistance and information, indicating what languages they speak. Other useful contacts include websites of national labour inspectorates and social security systems. In the future, it will also feature an app that can be downloaded onto mobile phones.

A groundbreaking deal between unions and government in Spain means that more than 300,000 public sector workers currently on fixed-term contracts will have the opportunity to move into permanent jobs over the next three years. The agreement, following the first set of major negotiations with government since 2010, marks a real step forward in tackling precarious employment. However, the unions are still pursuing pay rises that will compensate workers for a 15% drop in purchasing power over recent years.

In April – earmarked as Stress Awareness Month in the UK – the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) offered advice to members on how to handle stress in the workplace. Stress can come from many sources, so the advice to workers is not to try and distinguish between internal and external causes. Anything that affects work performance deserves to be treated seriously.

After long, hard negotiations, trade unionists in Milan have reached an agreement on conditions for transport workers subcontracted to internet sales giant Amazon.    The deal secured by the Federazione Italiana Lavoratori Trasporti (Filt) applies to freight and transport logistics workers in both the Origgio and Milan plants.

A growing number of Polish drivers are working in Belgium, sometimes on Belgian work contracts, and joining local trade unions. The Belgian Union of Transport (UBT) has set up a special info-point to support them.   The service offers information on a wide range of issues including social security, tax, unemployment benefits, and bankruptcy – and helps to counter social dumping by checking drivers are getting the same pay as Belgian colleagues.  

American fast-food chain McDonald’s has announced that it will offer fixed contracts with a minimum number of guaranteed hours every week to some 115,000 workers on zero-hours contracts in the UK. The change from zero-hours to fixed contracts comes after months of pressure from the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers’ Union (BFAWU).

Trade unions have reacted to protect workers following the announcement of massive store closures by Dutch household retailer Blokker. Some 100 branches will close their doors this year, plus 100 more at sister company Marskramer. A total of 1,900 of the 7,000 jobs at Blokker, Marskramer and parent company Blokker Holding will disappear, leaving around 400 stores after restructuring. The company plans to sell the branches, hoping to maintain jobs for some 13,500 workers in the Netherlands and elsewhere.

Multinational energy and automation company Schneider Electric has reached an agreement with European trade unions that will help workers to anticipate change and deal with the impact of globalisation. Schneider Electric has 45,000 employees in 29 European countries. Negotiations addressed current challenges such as energy transition, digital transformation, evolving professions and increasing the number of young employees.

In Nicosia, Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot journalists’ unions have signed a Memorandum of Understanding encouraging cooperation between members from both communities.

Industrial unions in Sweden have signed a three-year collective agreement, until 2020, that will benefit lower-paid workers most. The unions, including IF Metall, secured a wage deal worth 6.5%. “We went into these agreement negotiations with three clear demands: more money in our wallets, greater allocation to part-time pensions and a clear low-wage effort, all of which we succeeded in getting through,” said IF Metall Chairman Anders Ferbe.

Workers at Budapest’s public transport authority (BKV) have avoided strike action and obtained a new pay deal worth an extra 15% this year. The two BKV unions initially sought a 30% wage increase over three years, but this was turned down. The final increase negotiated with the trade unions, which applies retroactively from January 2017, will be financed 50-50 by the city government and the transport authority.

Trade unions and management at the French bank Crédit Agricole have agreed a three-year national framework on workers’ right to be offline, which should be adapted and implemented through negotiations at local level. The deal is based on a guide prepared by trade union representatives, entitled ‘the right to be offline in the branches of the regional offices of Crédit Agricole’, providing concrete examples of the issues to be dealt with. It sets down four general principles:

A new study in Denmark shows that growing numbers of refugees have been joining the labour market, thanks to last year’s agreement between trade unions, employers and the government on a ‘basic integration education programme’ (integrationsgrunduddannelse, IGU). The programme provides for refugees to take on short-term jobs at an apprentice-salary level of between 50 and 120 kroner (€6.7-16.1) per hour. IGU jobs can last for up to two years and refugees are offered skills development or education courses of up to 20 weeks.

Dear readers,    Welcome to the fourth edition of the Workers’ Voice National UPdates. Following the recent launch of the ETUC Pay Rise Campaign, this issue focuses particularly on pay developments in different countries. They demonstrate that trade unions make a difference and collective bargaining is having an impact. But there is still a long way to go to achieve our recovery! Join our campaign #OurPayRise.

More than 500 new apprenticeships are to be offered this year by defence company BAE systems in the UK, in the wake of a campaign by the Unite trade union.

Sustained action by trade unionists and youth groups in Slovenia has brought more security and better working conditions for young people, but the work goes on. The Youth Plus trade union (Mladi Plus), together with the National Youth Council and the Student Union of Slovenia, won a ban on unpaid internships, which used to be routine in the public sector, but they are still fighting for a quality framework for paid job experience.

Italian trade unions in the textile and clothing sectors have concluded a national collective agreement with the employers' side, Sistema Moda Italia (SMI), including a monthly wage increase of €90 and a minimum wage increase of €70. The deal also offers better health insurance and occupational pensions, more flexible parental leave, and a commitment to retraining. It covers over 420,000 workers in more than 40,000 companies, and runs from 1 April until 31 December 2019.

Ver.di is the first German trade union to consider plans for a pension fund for service workers, taking advantage of recent government proposals for reform of the occupational pension system.

Belgian trade union organisations and employers have agreed a cross-sector deal for 2017-2018, paving the way for a 1.1% annual pay rise, outside automatic wage indexation. With the last such agreement dating back to 2009, the deal marks the renewal of Belgium’s social dialogue system. Unions say it offers a solid base for sectoral and company-level negotiations.

Public service trade union JHL, which represents welfare professionals in Finland, has called for action in the wake of research demonstrating the link between workers’ well-being and productivity. The study estimates that absences due to sickness, invalidity, accidents at work, occupational diseases and other work-based problems cost the national economy some €24 billion a year, or €2 billion every month.

A campaign by Swiss public service union VPOD/ SSP helped to convince Swiss voters to throw out moves to ease corporate taxation, in a referendum on 12 February. Almost 60% rejected reforms that would have cut resources for vital public services.

Austrian trade union vida, which is calling for a €1,500 minimum wage in all collective agreements, has just secured agreement on this target in the tourism sector, coming into force in May 2017. The union organises many workers in low-paid private sector jobs. Among more than 350,000 workers receiving less than €1,500 – one in eight private sector employees – two thirds are women, for example in the private care and health service sectors, hotels and cleaning.

The beginning of 2017 saw minimum wage rises in Latvia. The government announced an increase of €10 per month, from €370 to €380. Central Statistical Bureau figures revealed that in April 2016, 177,800 working people were receiving a monthly salary of €370 or less: 144,500 of them in the private sector, 30,600 in the public sector.

The minimum wage in Bulgaria rose by 9% at the beginning of 2017, from the equivalent of €210 to €230. Trade unions campaigned for the increase by highlighting living costs –  for instance what a family would need to spend at Christmas –  to show that the previous minimum was inadequate. Despite initial opposition from employers, Bulgarian public and media were convinced.