Public service federations from the CCOO and UGT confederations have signed an equality action plan with the Red Cross that will cover its female and male employees. The plan will come into effect from 1 January and be valid for four years.
It covers 12 major objectives that include measures on issues such as staff selection and promotion, training in equality and the prevention and response to gender violence, including extraordinary aid to support those Red Cross workers who may suffer from it. The plan includes a protocol for the prevention of and action against sexual. In its continuing campaign to underline the importance of implementing a strong and effective directive on minimum wages, the ETUC has release figures showing that the gap in earnings between the richest and poorest Europeans grew in a majority of EU countries over the last decade.
The analysis suggests that trend is the result of a decrease in the share of workers covered by collective bargaining. Members of the union voted to reject the national public sector collective agreement earlier this year because it failed to tackle the longstanding issue of the undervaluing of nursing occupations.
The strike began on 14 June and the union has announced five extensions in advance with the latest one planned for 7 September involving a further nurses. Earlier this year the DSR membership rejected the main municipal and regional government collective agreement, calling for a higher pay rise for nurses. The conciliation process failed to deliver a result that the membership could endorse and so action involving around nurses went ahead. The union argues that the health services have been starved of investment and nurses have faced increasing work pressure and.
The FOA trade union has welcomed the government decision to set up a committee to examine the problem of pay inequality. FOA has been part of a large group of trade unions that have been pushing for new measures to achieve pay equality. While collective bargaining has been able to deliver some improvements public service unions argue that the problem requires a broader political approach.
