Health workers in the Sankt Gallen region (Canton) are finally benefitting from higher pay after a long-running dispute was resolved. The VPÖD public service union supported a number of workers in an initial claim in 2003 that the workers should be on higher pay rates and grades. The administrative court for the Canton agreed that the health workers were paid less than comparable jobs (ambulance workers, police) but that this was not primarily an issue of gender discrimination. This workers’ claim was eventually recognized by the federal court in 2010, leading finally to a settlement earlier in 2011, with health workers and midwives moving up the pay scale as well as getting back pay.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/436
German: http://www.vpod.ch/aktuell/nachrichten/ansicht/article/sankt-gallen ...
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.