Publications

The agreement between LO and AC comes as a reaction to the need for fewer
organisational disputes over boundaries and more cooperation with a view to
improving the service to their members. At a press conference, the LO
president,Hans Jensen, and the AC president,Søren Vang Rasmussen, pointed
out that the main objective of the new agreement is to ensure and safeguard
employees' influence on the development of Danish society. Both recognise the
growing need to speak with only one voice on a number of issues. One of these
issues is the need to upgrade and to meet the increasing demand for qualified
labour in Denmark. In this respect the two confederations will initiate two
joint projects - one aimed at forecasting developments which are likely to
characterise the labour market in the near future, and the other considering
the future need for further education and retraining.

The Industry Ministry and the UGT and CC.OO trade unions signed the /Plan for
the future of coal mining/ in Spain on 15 July 1997. The plan defines the
volume of aid for the mining sector, as well as production targets and labour
restructuring, for the period 1998-2005.

The collective agreement recently approved in the insurance sector provides
for a reduction of 10 minutes in the working week in 1997 and a further 20
minutes in 1998. Henceforth, weekly working hours will be below the 36
established by law across this sector for many years. The agreement, however,
lays down two particular types of working pattern, relaxing a rather rigid
traditional system to adapt it to new commercial policies:

In his general policy statement to the National Assembly in June 1997,
France's new Prime Minister announced the decision to close the Superphoenix
fast breeder reactor, drawing protests from trade unions.

Social partners at national level in the Netherlands have recently
recommended investment in the quality of the workforce. Alongside the
reduction of working time, the new spearhead for improving terms and
conditions of employment focuses on the education of workers. For the
Industrial Union affiliated to the Dutch Trade Union Federation
(Industriebond FNV), contracts with employers on investment in employment and
the education of workers will be a major item on the collective bargaining
agenda in the future. The potential significance of this is clearly
illustrated in the agreement concluded in June 1997 at Heineken.

Almost 400 members of the Irish Airline Pilots Association (IALPA) in
Ireland's state-owned airline, Aer Lingus, are to receive a pay award
averaging 7% after accepting the findings of an independent pay review on 5
July 1997. The review, which means a restructuring of pilots' pay in the
airline, was carried out by Phil Flynn, the former general secretary of the
Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) and the current chair of the
state-owned ICC Bank.

In its Communication on /People first - the next steps/, adopted on 23 July
1997, the European Commission argues that the social dimension of the
"information society" needs to be strengthened further if the European Union
is to take full advantage of the job-creation potential and improvements in
the quality of life potentially offered by new information and communication
technologies (ICT s). It sets out a strategy for achieving this objective at
national, European and international level.

Members of the finance trade unions BIFU and UNiFI who work at Barclays Bank
were balloted in July 1997 over whether to take industrial action. The ballot
took place after a consultative ballot concerning the bank's new pay
proposals showed overwhelming rejection by staff. Jim Lowe, the BIFU general
secretary, said that: "Staff are very angry ... If these proposals go through
as they stand, potentially over 25,000 staff face a wage freeze as well as
leaving pensions expectations in ruins. We believe this is totally immoral."

On 15 July 1997, the collective bargaining parties in the east German
construction industry, the construction union IG Bauen-Agrar-Umwelt (IG BAU)
and the two employers' associations, Hauptverband der Deutschen Bauindustrie
(HDB) and Zentralverband des Deutschen Baugewerbes (ZDB), signed an agreement
which covers 360,000 employees and includes the following:

Tripartite negotiations over the reform of Italy's welfare and social
security system started in earnest in July 1997. Two main points of tension
have so far arisen - pensions and flexibility in recruitment and redundancy.