The main public service union federations have come together to argue for a different approach to the public finance crisis. They want to see action to deal with wasteful expenditure but say that this has to be done in consultation with the trade unions and should not be about freezing or cutting public sector pay. The unions want to see space in the budget to cover the renegotiation of public sector collective agreements, underlining the importance of the workforce in delivering effective public services that can play a key role in the country’s recovery. A report from CISL FP calls for “a commitment from public authorities to involve workers and their representatives in a comprehensive process to tackle spending inefficiencies, optimize work organization to improve service management and delivery, and so retrieve money that can be redistributed to public workers through second-level bargaining.”
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/433
Italian: http://www.fpcgil.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeBLOB.php/L/IT/IDPagina/18515
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 at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2011.