Employer associations and trade unions reached a minimum level of agreement on the upcoming changes in labour laws. In the presence of the labour minister, they chose to put disagreements and objections aside so that the government has a negotiating tool at hand at the time of negotiations with creditors. Despite the overall agreement, issues such as mass layoffs, extension of collective agreements and the priority of sector agreements over company level bargaining, were not discussed in detail. The joint declaration of associations and unions was limited to the ratification of meetings held under the auspices of the International Labour Organization (ILO); a verbal agreement that minimum wage will not be reduced; and the Christmas, Easter and summer holiday bonuses will remain intact. It is also stressed that the social partners (employers and employees) should agree the minimum wage in the context of the National General Collective Agreement and that union legislation needs to be modernised, though without challenging the workers’ right to strike.
English: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2016/07/20/employers-and-employee-unions-agree …
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Willy De Backer wdebacker@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. Since June 2013 readers can consult our archive and search through all articles in our database at www.cbnarchive.eu. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.
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