Unlocking Collective Bargaining Power in Three Sectors: A Call to Action

CEECAW Newsletter No. 2

2025.

Project: Challenges for Organising and Collective Bargaining in Care, Administration and Waste collection sectors in Central Eastern European Countries - CEECAW

The CEECAW project is an initiative to change the future of collective bargaining in Central and Eastern Europe, in three sectors: care services, public administration and waste management. It seeks to empower trade unions and increase sectoral involvement in line with the EU Adequate minimum wage directive.

The project supports trade unions at sectoral and national level in implementing Article 4 of Directive (EU) 2022/2041, which requires Member States to create and implement national plans for the development of collective bargaining if coverage is below 80%.

In the first phase, partners and experts conducted research in 12 CEE countries and the results are available online (in English). The diagnostic phase concluded with a seminar in Belgrade (3-4 September 2024), described in the first newsletter.

The current second newsletter reports on the workshops held to strengthen collective bargaining in the partner countries, as well as important events and studies on the sectors analysed. The key topic, however, remains the future of Directive (EU) 2022/2041, as Denmark and Sweden have brought a case before the Court of Justice of the EU, arguing that the Union has exceeded its competence by issuing this regulation on European minimum wages. The text in the newsletter therefore starts with a discussion of this situation.