Services union ver.di is keeping up the pressure on church organisations in order to secure collective agreements and to affirm the right to strike. At the beginning of the month over 200 employees from two church institutions demonstrated in Hannover in support of their demands for a collective agreement. There was also some good news with a church-run clinic in Oldenburg saying it wanted to start negotiations with ver.di.
Read more at > ver.di (DE)
Campaign for collective bargaining and right to strike in church organisations
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Campaign for right to strike for church employees
The ver.di services union has set up a new website as part of a campaign against church employers, who provide a range of social services and who want to deny their workers the right to strike. Ver.di has been successful in cases taken to regional labour courts over church employees’ right to strike. However, the Synod (parliament) of the Evangelical Church is planning to legislate against strike action in church law. Ver.di is planning a protest demonstration on 4 November in Magdeburg. [Read more at > ver.di (DE)->http://www.verdi.de/themen/nachrichten/++co++cf734d90-effd-11e0-5686
Union continues to call for right to strike in church organisations
A hearing in the federal labour court in Erfurt on 20 November was due to consider the question of the right to strike in church organisations. This is a key issue for ver.di members working for the Elisabeth Foundation in Darmstadt. The Foundation is part of the Agaplesion health group which takes advantage of the so-called third way used by church organisations to avoid applying the employment laws that apply in the rest of the economy. Workers at the Elisabeth Foundation are calling for a proper collective agreement, along the lines of the main public sector agreement. Currently they face
Union organises strike against church employers
The ver.di services union is planning for a further stage of strike action against church employers in September. Around 250 ver.di members in several different church institutions in three different regions took strike action back in May. The union says that church bodies that provide health and social care are trying to use their special constitutional status to pay employees below the sector pay norm. In a specific cases five old people’s homes in Hannover have been sold to a religious foundation that has cut pay to run the homes at a higher profit. So far the religious authorities have