01-2007 epsucob@NEWS 9 January

The head of the UK civil service has written to all civil servants urging them not to vote for industrial action. The move comes as the biggest civil service union, PCS, begins a ballot of all its 300,000 members. The union says that the government now wants annual staff cuts of 5% a year over the next five years on top of the 100,000 job reductions demanded by the Gershon efficiency review. PCS also points out that the government has set a pay limit of 2% this year when inflation is already running at over 3%. The union is asking members to support industrial action in order to strengthen its

Just before Christmas trade unions confederations and employers completed their negotiations on the two-year intersectoral agreement that covers the two million workers in the private sector. The confederations will now carry out their own internal consultations before confirming the agreement. The agreement covers a wide range of elements. It sets an indicative pay increase of 5% over the two years 2007-2008. This is arrived at following comparison with predicted pay developments in the neighbouring countries of France, Germany and the Netherlands. The agreement also lays down two €25

Local government unions have until 28 February 2007 to respond to the latest government proposals on changing the local government pension scheme. Earlier attempts by the government to cut back on early retirement provision for municipal workers was resisted by the unions with a one-day national strike and threat of further industrial action. UNISON has responded to the new proposals by saying there are positive elements but further negotiations are required over implementing the changes and the planned changes to ill-health early retirement. [Read more at > UNISON (EN)->http://www.unison.org

On 5 March EPSU has organised a collective bargaining working group to follow up last month's collective bargaining conference. The aim of the working group will be to review the conference, plan for the 2007 conference (3-4 December) and consider the collective bargaining work for the current year. The working group will also have the opportunity to comment on the revised versions of the policy documents on young workers and migrant workers and the draft annual report. All members of the epsucob@ network and conference participants should have received a copy of the draft annual report. If

The ETUC has welcomed a decision by the European Council to withdraw trade privileges from Belarus in response to the government's failure to respect trade union rights. In 2004 a commission of inquiry of the International Labour Organisation called on the Belarus government to stop its harassment of trade unions and respect the right to association and assembly but the government has failed to respond. ETUC General Secretary John Monks said that in contrast to its failure to act in the past, “In this case [the European council] has shown it is willing to take concrete action in support of