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EUROPEAN REVIEW

ISSUE 37 - Page 2


EU Gender Institute to start up in Lithuania next year
WITH EUROPEAN UNION POLICY AIMED AT BOTH increasing the percentage of the population in work and taking away barriers to them reaching their full potential, the Commission plans to further attack discrimination in the workplace in the period 2006-2010.
A key part of its ‘Roadmap for Equality Between Men and Women’ is the creation of a new EU gender institute whose job it will be to gather data, make recommendations and hold seminars and conferences on gender issues. Late last year it gained the support of the Women’s Affairs Committee of the European Parliament and a deal was brokered by Socialist MEP Lissy Gröner between the Parliament, the Commission and the Council of Ministers so that it would be able to start work as early as possible. Vilnius
 However one tricky question remained: where would it be located? There is usually considerable competition among Member States to house EU institutions which are seen as both being good for the economy and providing access to important contacts. With only one agency having gone to one of the ‘new’ Member States who joined in 2004, the frontier management body to Warsaw, the mainly Eastern European countries were in pole position. Slovakia, Slovenia and Lithuania all bid, offering prestige buildings at a peppercorn rent.
Vilnius is set to host the new institute
Amid rumours of pressure from the Finns as EU Presidency holders the latter was declared as having put forward the best proposal and its capital, Vilnius, became the home of the new organisation. Its management board has been agreed at 18 representatives of Member States on a rotation basis plus one from the Commission. While bodies such as the European Women’s Lobby expressed disappointment that neither the social partners nor civil society were included, they will be allowed on the attached ‘Experts Forum’. The Women’s Committee of the Parliament will also hold a public hearing before the institute’s director is appointed.
With a budget of €52.5 million the European Institute for Gender Equality will set about tasks such as reducing the gender pay gap which currently stands at around 16% over the whole EU.   It will also hope for better co-operation from the Member States than that received by the Vienna-based EU Centre for Monitoring Racism and Xenophobia which has complained  about the governments' reluctance to share data.

Ryanair and unions clash across Europe
Low-cost airline Ryanair has a history of being anti-trade union as well as adopting a hard nosed approach to its employees. The spread of its operations have throughout Europe have brought into conflict with both unions and public authorities in a number of countries. The latest battlefields are Spain and Italy.
At Gerona airport the failure of the company to implement agreements and to respect workers’ rights led to strikes in October; when no management representatives attended mediation meetings organised by the Catalan regional government, further strikes were called throughout Spain. Ryanair advised passengers that they
Ryanair demo Spain
 could bring only hand baggage with them on strike days and threatened to pull out of their Spanish routes.In Italy the company refused to talk to the FIT-CISL union which had recruited crew members and tried to transfer staff who had been nominated as reps. When, in protest, the workers refused to serve food and drink on board aircraft they were suspended.
Vilnius is set to host the new institute
The company is also involved in controversy in its home base Ireland over plans to buy up national carrier Aer Lingus. Ingo Marowsky, Civil Aviation Secretary of the trade union federation ITF commented ‘With this kind of reaction to his tactics it is no surprise that [Ryanair managing director] O’Leary’s attempted takeover of Aer Lingus has been greeted with such opposition’.

Bargaining round-up

A NUMBER OF GRIEVANCES in the Greek education sector have come to a head in a prolonged school strike. Starting from the beginning of this academic year primary school teachers have struck in pursuit of a claim for an increase in pay of €328 a month plus a €103 supplement. Secondary school teachers joined in with 24-hour stoppages while university staff withdrew their labour for one day in October and students at both levels participated in demonstrations. There has also been controversy over proposals to set higher standards for entry to higher education and the establishment of private universities. Following the demonstrations the strike was called off in November and proposals for a ‘socio-political dialogue’ with the government have been put forward by the trade union confederation GSEE.

CZECH UNIONS HAVE WON a significant victory in the expanding supermarket sector after a prolonged struggle with German-owned chain ‘Plus Discount’. Over two years ago the Trade Union of Commercial Employees (OSPO) presented the company with a draft collective agreement. Under Czech law this constitutes the beginning of negotiations but instead management began to offer severance pay to union officials who agreed to be made redundant. The Czech federation CMKOS, together with the Confederation of German Trade Unions (DGB) also exposed bullying tactics against staff in a press conference and demonstration. Eventually the union was able to secure an agreement for 2,000 workers with ‘Plus Discount’ executive director André Rinnensland emphasising the importance of the workforce in the company’s success and planned expansion which will double their number.

MIGRATION OF WORKERS IN the Baltic countries continues to have an impact on labour relations in both ‘old’ and ‘new’ EU Member States. Finnish unions launched a strike in November at ‘Aker’ shipyards in the city of Turku to protest at the use of Lithuanian sub-contractors who were paying as little as €1.51 per hour. Labour inspectors found other sub-contractors were also violating rules on working time, overtime and shift work and had health and safety problems. The ‘Aker’ company eventually agreed to ensure that Finnish law and collective agreements would be respected and the strike was called off.


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