Spain - Regional union organisation appeals against pay cuts - August 17, 2010

The CCOO union confederation’s public sector organisations in the Extremadura region of south west Spain have lodged over 450 appeals against the pay cuts being imposed by the public authorities. The appeals cover nearly 80,000 workers in the regional administration and local authorities as well as workers in universities. The actions challenge the pay cuts on the basis of the infringement of union rights to collective bargaining and the maintenance of pay and employment. Earlier, the CCOO confederation attacked the Socialist government for what is allegedly the biggest attack on workers’ rights since the transition to democracy in the 1970s. CCOO general secretary Ignacio Fernández Toxo said that the change in the law gives too much flexibility to employers in terms of setting wages and working time and will undermine sectoral collective agreements leading to damaging wage competition.

English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/375;

Spanish: http://www.fsc.ccoo.es/webfsc/menu.do?Inicio:95068

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.