A selection of the latest European HR news from the Federation of European Employers (FedEE).

European Union: New leave rights for working parents
The European Council of Ministers for employment, social policy, health and consumer affairs has reached political agreement on a revised EU parental leave Directive. This implements an agreement concluded earlier this year between employers and trade unions at a European level. Under the new Directive:

• Parental leave is extended from three to four months per child.
• At least one of the four months cannot be transferred under any circumstances (and will therefore be lost if only one parent takes parental leave).
• Parental leave applies to employees on fixed-term and part-time contracts and to agency workers. It remains an individual right and may not be transferred from one parent to the other.
• Workers returning from parental leave have the right to request changes to their working hours and/or patterns for a set period. Employers must consider and respond to such requests for flexible working in the light of both their own and their employees’ needs.
• Employers are prohibited from treating employees less favourably because they assert their rights to take parental leave.
• EU member states may establish a qualifying period of up to one year before a parent has the right to take paid leave. However, in the case of successive fixed-term contracts with the same employer, the overall duration of such contracts is to be taken into account for the purposes of calculating that qualifying period.

Member states will have two years to bring into force laws to implement the revised Directive, or three years "if this is necessary to take account of particular difficulties or implementation by collective agreement."

Spain: Reform package will not reduce dismissal costs
The Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, announced to a conference earlier this week that his government intended to launch a number of employment policy initiatives in the new year. These will include incentives to operate shorter working hours, improved recruitment subsidies, the strengthening of public employment services, better mediation in labour disputes, greater curbs on temporary employment contracts and more effective measures to reduce the wage gap between women and men.

In a later speech to the conference Spain's economic minister, José Manuel Campa ruled out the reduction of fixed severance payments as a way of encouraging permanent contracts. Instead he put forward two alternative measures - higher employer social security contributions for fixed-term contracts or raising the severance payment for temporary employment. This position represents a sharp about-turn from Campa's position several months ago when he was signatory to an open letter from a hundred leading economists. This called for the introduction of a single, unified employment contract which built up termination benefits with years of service, starting from a modest severance payment during the first few years of employment.

Sweden: Sharply differing perspectives ahead of pay round
The year 2010 marks the beginning of the next major collective bargaining round in Sweden. Some 80 percent of all sectoral and other multi-company collective agreements are subject to renewal, affecting 3.3 million employees.

The current downturn has particularly hit the engineering sector where 20 percent of workers are now unemployed. Blue collar trade unions have also lost around 150,000 members since the last wage round in 1997.

Although LO, the principal trade union confederation, is calling for wage increases of SEK 620 (EUR 59.43) per month for full-time employees, the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise will resist any change in centralised wage rates, with any improvements confined to company level. More flexibility too will be sought, with the greater use of annualised hours arrangements.

Other European news in brief

Balkan States
Citizens of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia will no longer have to queue in order to obtain visas for most EU countries. Visa-free access has now been introduced for nationals from all three countries wishing to enter the Schengen free-movement zone.

Croatia
It is likely that Croatia will reduce its quota of work permits next year due to rising levels of unemployment. This year more than 4,000 permits have been issued, but the Economics Ministry is recommending that the quota is reduced to 902 in 2010.

Czech Republic
The Czech parliament is currently debating whether to scrap the current flat-rate income tax system and bring back progressive income tax. Currently employees pay 15 percent income tax on the sum of their salary and employer contributions. But the CSSD party has proposed that a marginal tax rate of 30 percent should be applied to all incomes above SEK 100,000 (EUR 3,882) a month, whilst the KSCM party has proposed a three-tier system with rates ranging from 15 percent to 32 percent.

France
The French labour minister Xavier Darcos has announced that the national minimum wage (SMIC) will rise on 1 January 2010 by 0.5 percent to EUR 1343.77 gross per month (for a 35-hour week). A review of the SMIC now takes place on 1 January, rather than 1 July, each year. Earlier this month an expert group recommended that the SMIC should remain unchanged during the coming year.

Irish Republic
An independent review into last year's electrical contractors' strike in Ireland has given rise to a number of recommendations. These include expanding the right to representation in the collective bargaining process to any employers' group with "permanent standing" in the industry - with seats allocated according to number of employees represented by each body. Furthermore, according to the authors of the report, where individual employers are unable to pay the agreed rates they should be able to apply to the Labour Court for a temporary exemption.

Italy
The civil court of Florence Giampaolo Muntoni in Italy has recognised the right of a father to take the same paid time-off work as his child's mother during her pregnancy and following childbirth. The case against the Italian social security agency (INPS) claimed that the agency had denied the father compensation at 80 percent of his normal salary for the period from two months before to three months after the birth.

Netherlands
The Dutch government is currently considering whether to raise statutory maternity leave from 16 to 18 weeks. The coalition Christian Democratic Party (CDA) has commissioned research into the incidence of sick-leave at the end of the current leave period. If this confirms their view that the incidence rate is high, they will propose the change during a review of all employment regulations next spring. The proposal would be supported by PvdA, the other leading coalition party.

OECD
The latest OECD leading indicators (CLI) suggest that a fairly strong economic recovery will take place during the first half of 2010 throughout the developed world, and especially in France, Italy, Germany and the UK. The CLI improved over the year to October 2009 by 2.2 points in Japan and 3.9 points in the USA, but in the euro area and the UK it grew by 8.8 points.

Portugal
The Portuguese Prime Minister has announced to the national Parliament that the Government intends to increase the national minimum wage on January 1st 2010 by EUR 25 to EUR 475 a month. This move is in line with the government's long established policy of raising the minimum wage to EUR 500 by 2011.

Russian Federation
The New Year and orthodox Christmas holiday in the Russian Federation will once again run from 1 January to 10 January 2010. However, two Saturdays next year will be classified as normal working days in order to extend public holiday periods. Saturday, 27 February will be a normal working day and 20 February to 23 February has been designated as a public holiday period. Likewise Saturday, 13 November will be a normal working day and 4 November to 7 November has been designated as a public holiday period.

United Kingdom
The UK government has published draft regulations requiring European Works Councils (EWCs) to be consulted before cross-border mergers, takeovers or restructuring takes place. This will bring UK law into line with the latest amendments to the EWC Directive. Responses to this consultation must be received by Friday, 12 February 2010 and the revisions must be implemented by 5 June 2011.

FedEE News

Conference 2010: Managing people across frontiers
It is set to be the most enjoyable HR event in 2010 - and it's happening in Ireland. FedEE's conference on 'Managing people across national frontiers' will take place at the Clontarf castle hotel, near Dublin on 11/12 March. It will follow a novel 'comedy-club' format with a Compère, cabaret-style seating, audience participation, a film première, short sessions for the majority of speakers and the minimum use of powerpoint slides. The keynote speech on German employment law will be given by Dr Gregor Dornbusch, a Baker & McKenzie employment law partner based in the leading international law firm's Frankfurt office. For further details visit http://www.fedee.com/conference.shtml

Copyright: FedEE Services Ltd 2009