Labor rights

Finland's new Prime Minister Sanna Marin plans to introduce a four-day work week with 6-hour business days.

According to her, a flexible schedule will allow workers to spend more time with their families. Marin believes this would also increase labor productivity.

The proposal was welcomed by Education Minister Li Andersson, the Daily Mail reported.

Women in the European Union still earn on average 16% less than men, a slight improvement from last year's 16.2%. This year the European Equal Pay Day falls on 4 November. It marks the day when women symbolically stop getting paid compared to their male colleagues for the same job.

The Russian Ministry of Labor and Social Protection will discuss an experiment to introduce a four-day workweek in enterprises included in the national productivity enhancement project, "Izvestia" newspaper reported.

The publication quotes Peter Zaselsky, Deputy Minister of Economic Development.

30% is the grey economy, according to trade union figures.

"Preventing and restricting undeclared work in Bulgaria" is the topic of a roundtable organized by The Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Bulgaria (CITUB).

In Romania we cannot speak of decent work, as of 2011, following the change of the Labour Code and the impossibility of negotiating collective labour contracts, Marian Apostol, the president of the 'Cartel Alfa' National Trade Union Confederation, the Caras-Severin branch, told a press conference on Thursday in Resita.

How about working not five days, but four days a week? Perhaps at the moment this seems to be impossible, but many employers are now considering shortening the number of working days in order to attract more employees and stimulate the productivity of their staff.

Contract workers employed at municipalities across Attica brave the wet weather to stage a demonstration outside the Interior Ministry in Athens, on Thursday. Their labor union, OTA, declared a work stoppage Thursday demanding the permanent hiring of contract workers by local authorities and the immediate recruitment of more staff to plug gaps in services.

The International Labour Organization forecast a worldwide unemployment rate of 5.5% this year, a marginal improvement on the 5.6% recorded in 2017, thanks to broad economic growth. 

But in its flagship World Employment and Social Outlook trends report, the ILO also raised serious red flags about the health of the planet's labour market. 

The European Trade Unions Confederation, ETUC, in its September statement marking the World Day of Decent Work, has condemned the Serbian railway carriage manufacturer Gosa for not paying its workers their wages, breaking the collective contract and refusing to negotiate with unions.

More than 150 million children, or nearly one in 10 globally, are victims of forced labor and progress in reducing that number has slowed, a leading United Nations' anti-slavery group said on Sept. 19.