Communication calendar

Late in 1996, Parliament passed legislation providing for changes in the Employment Security Act that aroused the anger of the trade unions. Although most of the new provisions apply from 1 January 1997, the most controversial modification, in Section 2 of the Act, will not come into force until 1

In January 1997, the cement company, Blue Circle (BCC), and two of Britain's largest trade unions, the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) and the General Municipal and Boilermakers Union (GMB), agreed what has been described as a "ground breaking" deal which gives a guarantee of job security

On 21 February 1997, theMinistry of Finance and the Danish Central Federation of State Employees (CFU) signed a new collective agreement for the period 1997-9, covering 225,000 government employees. The parties agreed on a total 4.25% increase, of which 2.9% is to be allocated for a general pay rise

At the end of January 1997, the Prime Minister ended the practice of issuing pay guidelines to France's nationalised companies.

A recent decree-law issued by the Government has increased the national minimum wage from 1 January 1997. The monthly rates have risen by up to 5%. We review Portugal's minimum wage system and the reactions to, and implications of, the 1997 increase.

Compared to many other western industrialised countries, Germany has the image of being a high-wage economy with a relatively low inequality of incomes and living standards. This is mainly the result of the German system of branch-level central collective bargaining (Flächentarifvertrag), where

The central social partners - the Austrian Trade Union Confederation (Österreichischer Gewerkschaftsbund,ÖGB) and the Austrian Chamber of Commerce (Wirtschaftskammer Österreich, WKÖ), the statutory body grouping almost all nonagricultural enterprises - have for some time been discussing a range of

Figures from the Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry ( Næringslivets Hovedorganisasjon or NHO) show that over 530,000 working days were lost in industrial conflict during the 1996 wage negotiations. These figures cover only private sector companies which are members of NHO, but nearly