Included in our our news roundup from across Europe: The Netherlands overhauls termination procedures, Irish Republic reviews unfair dismissal procedures, Switzerland removes quotas from labour market.

 Irish Republic: Preliminary hearings for unfair dismissal

An expert group set up to review employment litigation procedures in the Irish Republic has recommended the introduction of a preliminary process for dealing with individual cases prior to substantive hearings before the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT).

The EAT was first established as the Redundancy Payments Tribunal in 1967, but today 95 percent of its time is taken up with unfair dismissal hearings. Awards recently made by the EAT have ranged from EUR 5,000 to EUR 14,300. An important facet of the current EAT procedures is that if an employer does not submit a counter-statement when they are sent a copy of an application for a hearing, they will not be entitled to take part in the subsequent proceedings

Netherlands: Overhaul of termination procedures

A proposal has been drawn up by the Dutch government to establish a standard scale of compensation for employee termination. For employees under 40 years of age, the compensation would be one month's pay per year of service. This multiplier would rise to one and a half month's pay for those aged 40-50 and two months for those aged over 50. A ceiling of EUR 75,000 would be placed on total compensation (EUR 100,000 for older employees).

The introduction of the standard compensation scale would remove the necessity for employers to seek permission from the Centre for Work and Income or a court before dismissal can take place.

However, it would create a further obligation upon employers to retrain redundant staff to improve their chances of securing fresh employment.

The proposal has now been sent to the joint employer/union Foundation for Labour (STAR), which will issue its opinion on 1 September 2007. Changes in termination rules are unlikely to be acceptable to trade unions and it is doubtful whether the Dutch coalition government will have the strength of purpose to seek parliamentary approval in the face of union opposition.

Switzerland: Quotas removed from labour market

Since June 1st 2007, Swiss entry quotas have been removed for workers from 20 countries in the European Union and EFTA.
Foreign workers will still be required, however, to apply for permits before they may take up employment in Switzerland.

Moreover, under treaties concluded with the EU and EFTA, the federal government may opt to reintroduce quotas if the rate of immigration increases more than ten per cent above a three-year moving average.

Workers from the central and eastern European countries that joined the EU on 1 May 2004 (except for Cyprus and Malta) will have to wait until 2011 to gain a similar level of access to Swiss jobs. No date has yet been set for negotiations to begin about extending the accord to workers from Bulgaria and Romania, the two countries that joined the EU at the beginning of this year.

Other European news in brief

Austria: The Austrian trade chamber has reached an agreement with the Austrian trade union federation on the introduction of a national minimum pay level. This will be set at EUR 1,000 per month (gross) for full-time employees and the rate will apply to all collective agreements that are effective from 1 January 2009.

EU: The European works council (EWC) of ArcelorMittal was launched this week and takes over from separate EWCs that existed in Arcelor and Mittal prior to their merger. The new 54- member council represents 130,000 employees from across the European Union.

Germany: The German rail operator, Deutsche Bahn, has reached agreement with the Transnet and GDBA trade unions on a 19-month pay deal. Employees will receive an immediate one-off payment of EUR 600 followed by a 4.5 percent increase in basic rates on 1 January 2008.

Representatives of the GDL train drivers' union are continuing to press ahead with industrial action over the union's 31 percent pay demand in spite of two court injunctions. Union negotiators resumed wage talks with Deutsche Bahn 30 July.

Lithuania: Following representations from FedEE, the Justice, Freedom and Security Directorate-General of the European Commission is investigating a possible misdrafting of the Lithuanian law on legal protection of personal data. The current law requires employers to gain consent from individual employees before personal data may be sent to any foreign country - including other EU countries. This is contrary to the EU's Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC), which permits free movement of such data between EU member states provided that certain basic safeguards are in place.

Slovakia: A number of important employee-orientated amendments to the Slovak Labour Code were approved by the national parliament on 5 July 2007. These include the improvement of severance rights, tighter controls on night work, limitations on overtime and fixed-term contracts, banning contractors from carrying out 'dependent work' and introducing a right for trade unions to have primacy over works councils in company decision- making.

United Kingdom: The UK lost a total of 754,500 working days due to industrial action last year, five times more than in 2005.
87 percent of days lost were in the public sector, particularly in public administration and defence. Overall, days lost per 1,000 workers ranged from 53 in the north-west of England to just 5 in the south-east of England.

FedEE news

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Copyright: FedEE Services Ltd 2007