COMPULSORY ARBITRATION
| PORTUGAL |
| ARBITRAGEM OBRIGATÓRIA COMPULSORY ARBITRATION |
Compulsory arbitration may be invoked by the Ministry of Employment and Social Security whenever it has proved impossible to resolve a dispute through voluntary conciliation , mediation or arbitration . This may happen either on the recommendation of the Economic and Social Council or in response to a request by either of the two parties. This general system was introduced in 1992 following the Economic and Social Agreement: prior to that, compulsory arbitration had applied only to public enterprises and state-owned companies. The law provides a special procedure for the appointment of arbitrators, who may be nominated by the Economic and Social Council whenever the two sides fail to nominate their respective arbitrators or have been unable to reach agreement on the appointment of a third arbitrator. It should be added that during the last few years of the corporatist regime there was a system of compulsory arbitration in Portugal which was clearly a logical consequence of the ban on strikes. It was, without question, because this experience did not represent an unhappy memory for the unions that it was possible to agree on restoring a general system of compulsory arbitration.
Please note: the European industrial relations glossaries were compiled between 1991 and 2003 and are not updated. For current material see the European industrial relations dictionary.