Social partners in France have concluded an agreement on value sharing, to promote profit-sharing and incentive schemes as well as tax-free bonuses in all companies. Following a Convention on Value Sharing in February 2023, the French government has promised to formalise the terms of the accord in law.

Two of Italy’s major energy companies have agreed with trade unions on new measures to improve parental rights, wellbeing of workers, purchasing power and recruitment.

A milestone agreement between Italian unions FIOM-Cgil, FIM-Cisl and UILM and Trieste-based Fincantieri, Italy’s largest shipbuilding group, sets new standards on diversity, inclusion, work-life balance and employee well-being.

Denmark’s social partners have together proposed measures to extend workers’ rights to maternity and paternity leave, which have been agreed by the government. The new provision goes further than the EU’s 2019 Leave Directive – due to be implemented by this summer - extending Denmark’s existing maximum 32 weeks of paid leave shared between the parents. From August, each parent will have the right to a total of 24 weeks.

Irish union Fórsa is stepping up its cooperation with employers and NGOs in pursuit of a four-day week without loss of pay or productivity.   It has written to the chief executives of all local authorities to ask them to take part in four-day week pilot programmes. Fórsa is part of a coalition of employers, unions, environmental and women’s campaign groups calling for a gradual and managed transition to a shorter working week in all sectors of the economy.  

Trade unions in Finland are setting the pace in promoting women to top positions, compared with employers’ organisations, according to research by Finnish broadcaster YLE. The survey found that women held almost half of trade union board seats, compared with only around one-fifth of equivalent positions in employers’ federations. Ninety-two women and 97 men had places on the executives of the 10 main Finnish unions, with trade unions with large female memberships tending to elect more women.

Some 200,000 employees in hospitals in the Netherlands will benefit from a new collective agreement between unions and employers. Workers covered by the accord will get a total pay increase of 8% over 27 months. The deal also extends recovery time after on-call duty from six to eight hours, in a move to improve work-life balance. Staff will get their full salary while on sick leave, up from 90%, and the agreement awarded all hospital workers a one-off gross payment of €1,200 in January.

In advance of tomorrow’s (Thursday 13 June) adoption of the Work-Life Balance Directive by the EU Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council (EPSCO), the ETUC calls on Member States to take urgent action to transpose into law and implement these new rights for working families. “This is the first legislative advance to come out of the European Pillar of Social Rights, and it is crucial to demonstrate to EU citizens that it will mean real improvements in their lives,” said ETUC Deputy General Secretary Esther Lynch.

Proposals for a new parental leave scheme in Ireland have received a guarded welcome from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. "These are positive developments for working parents," said Equality Officer David Joyce. "It represents real progress even if it could have gone further. Congress will be studying the scheme to examine whether it is consistent with the proposed EU Work-Life Balance Directive. The social partners will have an important role to play in transposition and implementation and Congress looks forward to participating in those discussions.”

Carers and migrant workers are among the groups benefitting from collective agreements secured by the Fagforbundet public services union in Norway. The union is working to ensure that pay for staff in municipal services, including childcare, fully respects their qualifications and experience, including care responsibilities in the family. This could mean up to six years’ extra service related pay and seniority: a salary boost of some NOK 40,000. 

The European Trade Union Confederation  (ETUC) welcomes the conclusion of the trilogue discussions on the Work-Life Balance Directive. The provisional agreement reached contains a number of positive elements, including paid paternity and parental leave, currently missing at EU level. Said ETUC General Secretary Luca Visentini, “Although we regret the lengthy implementation period set, we consider this first legislative output of the European Pillar of Social Rights to be  a positive signal to EU citizens that Social Europe is alive and back on track."

The current European Commission and Parliament have until May 2019 to ‘change the rules’ to promote decent work for people across the EU who are getting increasingly disillusioned over precarious work, poor wages, and growing inequality. After the European elections in May 2019 at there is likely to be considerable change in the make-up of the two European institutions. The ETUC has drawn up a handy TO DO list, to be delivered by the current and future EU institutions, to mark World Day for Decent Work whose theme this year is ‘Change the rules’.

British teachers’ trade unions have teamed up with the government’s Department for Education, the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) to tackle the problem of excessive workload among school staff.

Measures to enable staff to combine work and family life more easily are at the core of a new collective agreement with the Coop retailer in Switzerland. The deal, which comes into force in January 2018, increases paid maternity leave to 16 weeks, and prolongs parental leave for fathers from one to three weeks. It also introduces additional child care provisions, with a Child Care programme to support single-parent families. Other improvements include better health protection also covering psychosocial risks, digital training, and easier access to trade union information.

Brussels, 22 September 2016 To the Members of the Women’s Committee To the members of the social dialogue committee   Dear Members of the Social Dialogue Committee,

Key Issues Good work-life balance has a positive impact on the well-being of workers. It can also contribute to achieving major EU policy goals: stimulating employment (especially among women and older workers) and growth; promoting children and youth development; and eventually achieving gender equality.

Brussels, 03/10/2008

Brussels, 08/03/2007 The ETUC position on the first stage of the social partners' consultation on the reconciliation of professional, private and family life calls for a number of measures to be put in place at EU level. In particular, the ETUC asks European leaders to: - take up measures to recognise the right to paid parental leave; - improve the maternity protection directive; - step up actions to enhance the availability, quality, accessibility, affordability of care services, especially child care and care for the elderly;