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[1/5] A general view inside the Munich Airport during a strike called by the German trade union Verdi over a wage dispute, in Munich, Germany, March 26, 2023. "The people are not only underpaid, they are hopelessly overworked," Frank Werneke, head of the Verdi labour union, told Bild am Sonntag. The Verdi union is negotiating on behalf of around 2.5 million employees in the public sector, including in public transport and at airports. Railway and transport union EVG negotiates for around 230,000 employees at Deutsche Bahn (DBN.UL) and bus companies. "It is a matter of survival for many thousands of employees to get a considerable pay rise," he said.

The Verdi union is negotiating on behalf of around 2.5 million employees in the public sector, including in public transport and at airports. Railway and transport union EVG negotiates for around 230,000 employees at Deutsche Bahn (DBN.UL) and bus companies. Verdi has called on around 120,000 employees in the transport and infrastructure sectors, including ground and air traffic service providers, shipping, motorways and municipal ports, to join the strikes. We want a negotiable offer," said Martin Burkert, the chairman of the EVG union, which represents workers at 50 transport companies, including railway operator Deutsche Bahn. German airport association ADV also condemned the strikes expected to hit around 380,000 air travellers on Monday as all airports across Germany, except Berlin, would come to a virtual standstill.

☆ Nationwide protests in France after Macron doubles down on pension bill
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( John Irish | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/4] Protesters gather during a demonstration after the pension reform was adopted as the French Parliament rejected two motions of no-confidence against the government, in Paris, France, March 22, 2023. REUTERS/Nacho DocePARIS, March 23 (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of people were set to strike and demonstrate in France on Thursday after President Emmanuel Macron vowed to push on with a deeply unpopular pension reform despite escalating anger across the country. Macron drew an angry response from unions and opposition parties on Wednesday when he rejected their calls for him to heed growing popular anger. Most protests have been peaceful, but anger has mounted since the government pushed the bill through parliament without a vote last week. Polls show a wide majority of French opposed to the pension legislation and the government's decision to push it through parliament without a vote.

REUTERS/Eric GaillardSummary Pushed pension changes through with no voteGovernment barely survived no-confidence motionStrikes and protests continuePARIS, March 22 (Reuters) - President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said a deeply unpopular new law that raises the retirement age was necessary and would enter into force by the end of the year. "Do you think I enjoy doing this reform? "But there is not a hundred ways to balance the accounts ... this reform is necessary." Polls show a wide majority of French are opposed to the pension legislation, as well as the government's decision to push the bill through parliament last week without a vote. "I don't expect much from Macron's speech," pensioner Jacques Borensztejn said at a rally on Tuesday in Paris.

Protests against the bill have drawn huge crowds in rallies organised by unions since January. Most have been peaceful, but anger has mounted since the government pushed the bill through parliament without a vote last week. The ongoing protests could impact a planned state visit next week of Britain's King Charles, a Buckingham Palace source said. While the opposition has called for Macron to fire his prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, who has been at the forefront of the pension reform, Macron backed her and said that he had tasked her to work on new reforms. "Tomorrow we will be on the streets again to demonstrate against the pension reform and demand its withdrawal," said one of them, CFDT union member Sophie Trastour.

The president, the government and the majority," a senior MP in Macron's camp, Gilles Le Gendre, told Liberation newspaper. Another MP in Macron's camp, Patrick Vignal, bluntly urged the president to suspend the pension reform bill, which will raise the retirement age by two years to 64, given the anger it has triggered, and its deep unpopularity. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes 1 2 3 4 5While Borne said the administration would try in future to better involve citizens and unions in lawmaking, she gave no specifics, and both said they had devoted as much time to dialogue on the pension bill as possible. Other opposition MPs urged Macron to fire Borne, call snap elections and hold a referendum on the pension bill because of the widespread anger. Polls show a wide majority of French are opposed to the pension reform, as well as the government's decision to push the bill through parliament without a vote.

☆ Tunisian president's supporters rally against 'traitors'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/3] Supporters of Tunisia's President Kais Saied hold cloth in the colours of the Tunisian flag during a rally to demonstrate their support for the president after a crackdown on opponents accused of treason and corruption, and to reject what they call foreign interference, in Tunis, Tunisia March 20, 2023. The opposition has held frequent protests against Saied, regularly drawing crowds of thousands, but his own supporters have only rarely taken to the streets. Saied has denied mounting a coup, saying his actions were legal and necessary to save Tunisia from years of chaos, and has denounced his opponents as traitors, criminals and terrorists. He has responded to expressions of concern at his moves by the United States and the European parliament by denouncing them as foreign interference and attacks on Tunisian sovereignty. "We support Saied in his campaign against the traitors and the corrupt, against those who ruined the country during the past decade and against external interference," Lobna Souissi, one of the demonstrators, said.

☆ French protests: 37% of operational staff at TotalEnergies' refineries on strike
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

PARIS, March 18 (Reuters) - Some 37% of operational staff at TotalEnergies' (TTEF.PA) refineries and depots were on strike on Saturday amid persisting protests in France against the government's move to raise the retirement age by two years to 64. French fuel supplies could be put at risk again next week following union calls to extend 10 days of strike action at refineries. The Donges refinery in the west has been offline due to a technical problem with an electricity transformer, he said. At the company's Normandy site in the north, operations and production at a large number of units were normal. At oil major ExxonMobil's (XOM.N) Esso-branded Port Jerome-Gravenchon refinery in Normandy, fuel deliveries were halted for at least 24 hours, a representative of the hardline CGT labour union said.

REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File PhotoTOKYO, March 17 (Reuters) - Japan's major companies have concluded their annual labour talks with average wage hikes of 3.8% for the coming fiscal year, the largest raise in about three decades, trade union confederation Rengo said on Friday. The preliminary survey of 805 unions affiliated with Rengo showed the average hike rate of 11,844 yen ($89) per month, according to the labour organisation. "Many unions received in full or exceeded their demand for wage hikes," Rengo chief Tomoko Yoshino told a news conference. Those businesses have often struggled to pass on rising costs to their customers. It's unclear whether the rising wage trend will be sustainable, let alone create the "virtuous cycle" of stronger economic growth and 2% inflation long sought by Japan's central bank.

☆ Bad news salvo gives Bank of Japan some cover
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Pete Sweeney | Thomson Reuters | Asia Economics Editor Pete Sweeney Joined Reuters Breakingviews In Hong Kong In September Previously He Served As Reuters' Chief Correspondent For China Economy | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

HONG KONG, March 16 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Incoming Bank of Japan (8301.T) Governor Kazuo Ueda can breathe a sigh of relief; things aren’t going very well. Ripples from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank have shoved down sovereign bond yields, inadvertently driving off an attack by traders who believed global inflation made rate hikes unavoidable. This year, however, spiking energy costs have pushed the core consumer index excluding fresh food over 4%, double the BOJ’s target. Consumer price inflation including energy but excluding fresh food touched 4.2% in January, a 41-year high. Core consumer inflation has now exceeded the Bank of Japan's 2% target for nine straight months.

☆ Police fire tear gas at spontaneous anti-pension bill protest in Paris
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

PARIS, March 16 (Reuters) - Police fired tear gas at protesters on the Place de la Concorde in Paris, where some 7,000 people demonstrated against the government's pension changes in a spontaneous and unplanned rally. [1/3] A demonstrator holds a CGT labour union flag during a protest after French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne used the article 49.3, a special clause in the French Constitution, to push the pensions reform bill through the National Assembly without a vote by lawmakers, in Nantes, France, March 16, 2023. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe 1 2 3A Reuters reporter saw cobble stones being thrown at the police, who charged to break up groups of protesters. The demonstration was across the river Seine from parliament, where Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne earlier on Thursday announced her government would push through the reform using a special constitution clause, as her minority government could not get the necessary backing from the opposition conservative Les Republicains party. Reporting by Antony Paone, writing by GV De Clercq; Editing by Chizu NomiyamaOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Since the crash, rail workers have staged rolling strikes demanding that the government takes action to revamp the sector. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov 1 2 3 4 5PUBLIC OUTRAGEPeople laid flowers and candles at the Athens central train station. "We want safe railways that operate," the head of a railway workers union Nikos Tsikalakis told state television. "We will not allow a lack of transparency, a cover-up, a renunciation of responsibilities and any delays to lead to oblivion," private sector union GSEE said in a statement. "The culprits must pay regardless of their rank," read a poster by public sector union ADEDY.

☆ Analysis: Wage catch-up to prolong Europe's inflation battle
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Balazs Koranyi | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

"Part of the wage increase is understandable," said Jens Ulbrich, chief economist at Germany's Bundesbank. Yet the rapid wage growth underway now will hamper the European Central Bank's efforts to get inflation back to its 2% target, and possibly force it to keep interest rates high for longer. "We are taking a first step, but much more is needed to reverse the years of lopsided wage growth," Kager added. "The inflation trend, food and especially energy prices are tearing deep holes in our workers' budgets," ver.di Chairman Frank Werneke said. "The high levels of wage growth projected for 2023 and 2024 can be expected to make wages an increasingly dominant driver of underlying inflation in the euro area," Lane says.

On Tuesday, a nationwide day of industrial action brought record numbers of people onto the streets against the policy change. But Olivier Gantois, the head of the French Association of Petroleum Industry (UFIP), said there was little impact on consumers for now. The logo of French oil and gas company TotalEnergies is seen at TotalEnergies fuel depot in Mardyck, near Dunkerque, as France faces the sixth nationwide day of strike and protests against French government's pension reform plan, France, March 7, 2023. REUTERS/Pascal RossignolThe four French LNG terminals and all of the gas storage facilities also remained blocked, FNME-CGT representative Fabrice Coudour said. The next nationwide day of strikes and protests is set for Saturday.

☆ Unions seek to bring France to a halt to block pension reform
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Ingrid Melander | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] Suburban trains are seen at the Saint-Lazare train station in Paris on the eve of the sixth nationwide day of strike and protests against the pension reform in France with heavy disruption on French SNCF railway and the Paris transport RATP networks, France, March 6, 2023. "Together, on March 7th, let's put France to a halt! "People massively reject this reform," CFDT union leader Laurent Berger told France Inter radio. "The future of our pension system is at stake," Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne told France 5 TV on Monday. "We are moving up a gear," the head of CGT union, Philippe Martinez, told weekly JDD.

☆ Tunisian opposition defies protest ban with rally
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/3] Supporters of Tunisia's Salvation Front opposition coalition react during a protest over the arrest of some of its leaders and other prominent critics of the president, in Tunis, Tunisia March 5, 2023. REUTERS/Zoubeir SouissiTUNIS, March 5 (Reuters) - Hundreds of opposition supporters in Tunisia defied an official ban on their protest against the president on Sunday after some of their leaders were arrested, breaking through a police barrier in central Tunis to rally in the city's main street. The National Salvation Front coalition combines Tunisia's biggest party, the Islamist Ennahda, the Stop the Coup protest movement and some other political parties, demanding that President Kais Saied step down. However, opposition to Saied is fragmented along ideological and political lines that were drawn during a period of democratic government after the 2011 revolution which triggered the Arab spring. Reporting by Tarek Amara, writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Bernadette BaumOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Tunisian union holds biggest protest yet against president
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] Supporters of the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) protest against President Kais Saied, accusing him of trying to stifle basic freedoms, including union rights, in Tunis, Tunisia March 4, 2023. REUTERS/Zoubeir SouissiTUNIS, March 4 (Reuters) - Tunisia's powerful UGTT labour union rallied in the capital on Saturday in what appeared to be the biggest protest yet against President Kais Saied, staging a show of strength after his recent crackdown on opponents. Many thousands of protesters filled Habib Bourguiba Avenue, the main street in central Tunis, holding banners that read "No to one-man rule" and chanting "Freedom! Hamma Hammami, head of the Workers Party, said protests were the answer to what he called Saied's "creeping dictatorship". Saied has denied his actions were a coup, saying they were legal and necessary to save Tunisia from chaos.

☆ ECB confronts a cold reality: companies are cashing in on inflation
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Francesco Canepa | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +9 min

"It's clear that profit expansion has played a larger role in the European inflation story in the last six months or so," said Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS Global Wealth Management. "The ECB has failed to justify what it's doing in the context of a more profit-focused inflation story." Instead, national accounts and earnings reports from listed companies are being used as proxies to paint the inflation picture. "The main story of the risks going forward is still that there's a looming wage-price spiral which should make the central bank even more aggressive in hiking interest rates." loadingloadingEven inside the ECB, labour representatives demanding higher pay for central bank staff have distanced themselves from what they described as the institution's "anti-worker bias".

☆ Hours after deadly train crash, Greece agonises over what went wrong
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Angeliki Koutantou | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/7] A general view of the site of a crash, where two trains collided, near the city of Larissa, Greece, March 1, 2023. There have been widespread media reports electronic signal software was not working, meaning signalling was done manually. OSE, the country's state-owned operator for rail infrastructure, did not respond to calls requesting comment nor did it issue a statement. Within hours, Greek police had arrested the station master at a provincial train station, accusing him of death through negligence. Hellenic Train, a unit of Italy's Ferrovie dello Stato which acquired passenger and freight operations, said it was working with authorities on the investigation.

☆ Tunisia holds prominent critics of president in pre-trial detention, lawyers say
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Feb 25 - A Tunisian anti-terrorism investigative judge decided on Saturday to hold three prominent politicians and a high-profile businessman in pre-trial detention, their defence team said, amid a continuing crackdown targeting opposition figures. The four men are the first to face a judicial hearing among over a dozen leading figures critical of President Kais Saied who have been detained this month. Late on Friday, police also detained Ghazi Chaouachi, another prominent critic of Saied, his son said. Saied has said some of those detained are behind food shortages that economists have blamed on a crisis in state finances. Police have also detained a senior figure in the powerful UGTT labour union and several members of a police union on separate charges.

TOKYO, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T), the world's biggest automaker, said on Wednesday it would accept a union demand for the biggest base salary increase in 20 years and a rise in bonus payments, as Japan steps up calls for businesses to hike pay. As one of Japan's biggest employers, Toyota has long served as a bellwether of the spring labour talks, which are in full swing at major companies. The All Toyota Workers' Union is set to hold a media briefing later on Wednesday. "We will boost consumption and expand domestic demand by promoting efforts toward structural wage increases," Kishida said at a lower house budget committee session on Wednesday. Video game maker Nintendo Co Ltd (7974.T) said earlier this month that it planned to lift workers' base pay by 10%, despite trimming its full-year profit forecast.

☆ Toyota to accept full union demand for wage hike for 3rd straight year - Asahi
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

TOKYO, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T), the world's biggest automaker, will accept a union demand in full for a rise in wages and bonus payments for a third consecutive year, the Asahi newspaper reported on Wednesday. Toyota will disclose its decision at the first round of wage negotiations scheduled on Wednesday, the paper said. As one of the country's biggest employers, Toyota has long served as a bellwether of the spring labour talks. Toyota's labour union has said that this time it is seeking a base salary increase that would be "the highest level in the past 20 years". The Asahi said it was also seeking one-off bonus payments worth 6.7 months of wages.

☆ Nike, Adidas shoe supplier Pou Chen to slash 6,000 jobs in Vietnam -sources
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The firm's Pouyuen Vietnam factory will cut 3,000 jobs this month and not extend labour contracts for another 3,000 workers later this year, the officials said, declining to be identified because they were not authorised to speak to media. The Pouyen Vietnam factory supplies global companies such as Nike Inc. (NKE.N) and Adidas AG (ADSGn.DE) and is one the biggest employers in Ho Chi Minh City, with 50,500 workers. Pou Chen shares fell 1.2% in early afternoon trade in Taiwan in a broader market (.TWII) that was down just 0.1%. Telephone calls to a factory labour union official were not answered. The plan to cut jobs marks a reversal for the company that in 2021 faced a labour shortage and manufacturing disruption in Vietnam due to the coronavirus pandemic.

☆ Powerful Tunisian trade union defies president with mass protests
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-18 | by ( Tarek Amara | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/5] Supporters of the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), carry flags and banners during a protest against what they say authority's attacks on freedoms and union rights, in Sfax, Tunisia February 18, 2023. REUTERS/Jihed AbidellaouiSFAX, Tunisia, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Thousands of members of Tunisia's powerful UGTT trade union took to the streets of eight cities on Saturday to protest against President Kais Saied's policies, accusing him of trying to stifle basic freedoms including union rights. In Saturday's demonstrations, thousands of protesters in the southern city of Sfax carried national flags and banners with slogans including "Stop the attack on union freedoms" and "Cowardly Saied, the union is not afraid.". Senior UGTT official Othman Jalouli told the crowd Saied's government "wants to silence the voice of the union". Addressing the Sfax protest, Esther Lynch, confederal secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, said she had come to convey a message of support from 45 million European trade unionists and called for the immediate release of detained union officials.

☆ Canada unveils sustainable jobs plan to prepare workers for future green economy
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Nia Williams | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

From 2025 the government plans to release a new sustainable jobs plan every five years. Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been promising sustainable jobs legislation since 2019. But in Canada, the world's fourth-largest crude oil producer, the concept of retraining workers for clean energy jobs, also called a "Just Transition", became a lightening rod for criticism. "Rather than a shortage of jobs, in Canada we are much more likely to see an abundance of sustainable jobs with a shortage of workers required to fill them," the plan said. Think-tanks Clean Energy Canada expects jobs in the sector will grow by 3.4% annually over the next decade, nearly four times faster than the Canadian average.

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