European pay co-ordination

With wages now being paid in Euros in 12 of the 15 EU states the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has just presented its first full survey of how far trade unions have been able to achieve the ETUC's pay guideline. This is that overall increases should match inflation plus increases in productivity, although part of the pay increase can be taken in other ways. It finds that, using figures supplied by the unions, "a large number of countries (seven) are below the guideline but relatively close to it". These are Denmark, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. The remainder, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal and the UK, are below the guideline. However, the report also finds that "almost all wages are increasing above inflation, the first prerequisite of the guideline adopted by the ETUC". (Annual report on the co-ordination of collective bargaining ETUC December 2001.)