Despite new rules on bonuses in the EU, the third holiday season since the onset of global financial crash is shaping up to be a story straight out of a Charles Dickens novel.

Workers at Visy in Victoria, NSW, Queensland and WA (Australia) have today voted to return to work after securing an agreement from the company not to freeze the pay of casual workers.

The written declaration on the future of post can now be signed after it was launched at the last plenary session in the European Parliament

Police arrested striking packaging workers earlier in the week, during a protest at the Visy factory in Dandenong, Melbourne.

The German Federal labour court has ruled that collective agreements signed by the Union of Christian Union which allow lower working conditions than those agreed Ver.di, as invalid.