Publications

A draft bill on further liberalisation of the electrical power market, issued
by the Greek Ministry of Development in June 2003, has provoked strong
reactions from the industry's workers, who held protest strikes in June and
July.

In July 2003, a new national collective agreement for Italy's 200,000 postal
workers was signed by Poste Italiane SpA and sectoral trade unions. The deal
provides for a 7.5%. pay increase over two years, as well as introducing a
new job classification system and greater flexibility in working time and
forms of employment.

This article examines the French situation, as of June 2003, with regard to:
legislation and collective bargaining on the pay and conditions of posted
workers (ie workers from one EU Member State posted by their employer to work
in another); the number of such posted workers; and the views of the social
partners and government on the issue.

In May 2003, as part of the demationalisation of Hellenic Petroleum, an
agreement was signed to merge it with the Greek private sector oil company,
Petrola. The POEPDHV petrochemical workers' trade union opposes the merger on
the grounds that it is economically infeasible and furthermore claims that
the merger procedure ignored commitments to social dialogue. It called a
strike at Hellenic Petroleum in July.

July 2003 saw the launch of the Luxembourg Automobile Parts Industry (ILEA),
a new industry and employers' federation for the country's automotive parts
industry. The new body brings together 15 enterprises in this growing sector,
together employing over 8,000 workers.

Romania is currently facing large-scale redundancies as a result of the
restructuring, reorganisation and privatisation of state-owned enterprises.
In line with the government’s Emergency Ordinance No. 8/2003 regarding
incentives for such restructuring, and given that under the new Labour Code
(introduced adopted by Law No. 53/2003) such workforce reductions are to be
addressed in a different manner than in the past, a plan has been developed
to overcome the social tensions and difficulties that might arise from the
forecast redundancies. A Social Assistance Programme (Program de
Acompaniament Social, AS) was thus launched on 14 April 2003, envisaging a
better activation of local development opportunities; 13 of Romania’s
counties (out of a total of 41) are to be affected.

In July 2003, the lower chamber of the Polish parliament passed a law
regulating temporary agency work (approval by the upper house is to follow).
Agency work has been growing in Poland in recent years, and its regulation
has been debated for some time. The new legislation defines temporary agency
work and lays down rules on its use and on the employment conditions of
agency workers.

According to figures issued by Poland's State Labour Inspection in mid-2003,
310 new single-establishment collective agreements were registered in 2002,
covering some 118,000 employees (most Polish collective bargaining occurs at
single-employer level). The agreements' provisions primarily covered
remuneration, working time and leave. Terms more favourable to employees than
the legal minima are becoming less frequent in collective agreements, while
there is an increasing tendency for the parties to agreements to suspend
application of all or some of their provisions.

In 2002, the Ministry of Labour started a three-year experiment of using
private 'job hunters' to find work for long-term unemployed people. The
experiment has been conducted in employment offices in the largest cities.
The aim is to find jobs for people who have been unemployed for longer than
six months, or for a shorter period in the case of people with special
difficulties in finding a job - eg owing to age or disability. The job
hunters can be private firms, associations or individuals operating as
entrepreneurs. Agreements to provide such services are reached between the
employment offices and the job hunters after a competitive tender process, in
the same way as in any other public procurement. Each employment office can
reach an agreement with several job hunters, who then conclude contracts with
the unemployed people concerned, selected from candidates proposed by the
employment office. The client and the job hunter sign a three-month contract,
which can be renewed for another three months. The job hunters are paid if
they find the job seeker a non-subsidised private sector job for at least six
months. The job can be full time or part time, but the working time must be
at least 75% of the normal.

In Austria, 'minimally employed workers' (geringfügig Beschäftigter) are
defined as employees whose income per year does not exceed a fixed amount
(calculated as a monthly average) laid down by law and upgraded annually. For
2003, this monthly pay limit amounts to EUR 309.38. Nearly all minimally
employed workers are part-time workers.