Slovakia - Wage increase at Volkswagen - July 9, 2010

From March 2010 on, the automotive industry in Slovakia is overcoming the recession and unions are demanding higher wages. Volkswagen Slovakia, hit by the economic downturn in 2009, has agreed a wage increase of 3%, with a one-off payment to employees of Euro 215. The unions had threatened strike action in March, when initial bargaining failed, but within a few weeks an agreement was met for 2010–2011. Bohdan Wojnar, the company’s Human Resources Director said: “Our qualified and motivated employees are the basis of our business success. Our team, despite difficult economic conditions, worked to their full potential in order to supply our customers with first-class cars in top quality. This hard work has paid off now.” Zoroslav Smolinský, chair of the plant trade union, stated: “We managed to reach what we wanted.”

English: http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/eiro/2010/04/articles/sk1004019i.htm

This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI atwww.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2009.