Actors and institutions in Romania

In Romania, the public authority and institutions active in the area of industrial relations are detailed below.

The National Tripartite Council for Social Dialogue (CNTDS) is a national-level consultative body that includes trade unions and employer organisation representatives and representatives of the government, the National Bank of Romania and the Economic and Social Council (CES).

The CES is a national institution – formed by civil society, trade union and employer organisation representatives – that must be consulted on any legal changes with implications for economic, social and fiscal activities. In 2017, the CES was relaunched after its activity had been blocked for several years due to unclear legislative provisions.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Solidarity is the public authority responsible for social protection, employment and labour mobility. It is in charge of elaborating and applying policies and strategies regarding social inclusion, social protection, employment and the labour market. Three public institutions responsible for working conditions are coordinated by the ministry: the Labour Inspectorate, the National Agency for Labour Force Employment (ANOFM) and the National House of Public Pensions. The ANOFM oversees the application of employment strategies and professional training and the implementation of social protection for unemployed people.

The Labour Inspectorate supervises and controls the application of labour legislation by employers concerning, for example, working conditions and health and safety in the workplace.

Although there are no distinct labour courts, work-related litigation or conflict settlement may be achieved by initiating judicial action through the regular courts.

With regard to resolving conflicts between an employer and an employee, the newly issued Civil Code introduces a mandatory provision requiring the parties to participate in a session during which the advantages of the mediation procedure are presented. Upon completing this informative session, the parties may decide to carry on with the mediation procedure to resolve the conflict or to present their case in court.

The Labour Code and Law No. 319/2006 provide the legal framework for health and safety in the workplace. The law stipulates the creation of health and safety committees in companies with more than 50 employees. However, the Labour Inspectorate can make compulsory the creation of health and safety committees in companies with fewer than 50 employees if the nature of the activity and the risks associated with the workplace require such a committee. The committees, formed by representatives of employers, workers and specialists in labour-related health, coordinate and supervise the application of health and safety provisions.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Solidarity is the authority overseeing health and security in the workplace. It is also in charge of drafting strategies and policies and monitoring the legislation, and appointing companies/people to provide prevention and protection services in the field of health and safety in the workplace.

The Ministry of Health is the key authority in the field of public health assistance. It draws up the regulations for health protection in the workplace. The Ministry of Health also monitors workers’ health and is responsible for providing professional training in the area of occupational health.

The Labour Inspectorate controls the application of the legislation on health and safety at work by implementing programmes regarding professional risks, running investigations and imposing sanctions if need be.

Lastly, the National Institute for Scientific Research within the Ministry of Labour and Social Solidarity conducts scientific research that substantiates the policy measures in the area of health and safety at work.

A trade union organisation is considered to be representative at national level if the affiliated organisations account for at least 5% of the total number of employees in the national economy and it has territorial structures in at least 50% + 1 of counties, including the capital, Bucharest. Similarly, an employer organisation is considered to be representative if its members account for at least 7% of the total number of employees at national level and it has territorial structures in 50% + 1 of counties, including Bucharest.

About trade union representation

The new Social Dialogue Law modified the minimum number of employees required to form a trade union, reducing it from 15 to 10 from the same establishment or 20 employees working in the same sector. Unemployed people and independent workers can join a union; however, unemployed members are not considered when establishing the number of trade union members to determine representativity.

People who hold a public function, such as magistrates, people in the military, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and employees of the secret services, cannot form or join a trade union.

Currently, the five nationally representative confederations – the National Trade Union Bloc (Blocul Naţional Sindical, BNS), the National Trade Union Confederation ‘Cartel Alfa’ (Confederaţia Naţională Sindicală ‘Cartel Alfa’, Cartel Alfa), the National Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Romania –Brotherhood (Confederaţia Naţională a Sindicatelor Libere din România – Frăţia, CNSLR Fratia), the Confederation of Democratic Trade Unions in Romania (Confederaţia Sindicatelor Democratice din România, CSDR) and the Meridian National Trade Union Confederation (Confederaţia Sindicală Naţională Meridian, CSN Meridian) – publish their official documents on the Ministry of Labour and Social Solidarity’s website. Together, they account for 1,349,677 members out of 5,700,035 (January 2023). The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development/Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies database reported a trade union density of 24.1% in 2018. There is some difficulty in assessing the accuracy of union densities, as data from different sources are often conflicting.

Trade union membership

There seems to be a wide variation in trade union density at sectoral level: some sectors, such as public administration, education and healthcare, have a trade union density exceeding 50%, while in manufacturing, clothing and commerce it is much lower. One of the main reasons is the high number of companies with fewer than 15 employees, which could not be unionised according to the previous Social Dialogue Law (Law No. 62/2011); 45% of the commerce sector’s employees and 32.6% of the construction sector’s employees work in establishments with fewer than 15 employees, according to some estimates.

Trade union membership and density, 2010–2019

Notes: * Proportion of employees who are members of a trade union. ** Total number of trade union members (including self-employed workers and non-active union members – that is, students, retirees or unemployed people) at national level. n.a., not available.

Achieving representativeness seems to be harder at sectoral and company levels. Data from the end of 2015 show that representative trade union federations exist in 21 out of 29 economic sectors. Large sectors – such as textiles and commerce, together accounting for around one million employees – do not have representative federations. Research shows that the actual representativeness threshold for some sectors is much higher than the legal one: the legal threshold is 13.3% for the commerce sector, 10.4% for construction and 8.7% for information and communications technology.

Main trade union confederations and federations

In 2023, there were five national representative trade union confederations in Romania: CNSLR Fratia, Cartel Alfa, BNS, CSN Meridian and CSDR. The number of representative trade union confederations remained unchanged since 2018. Below, we provide the representative trade union confederations and the most important federations (which are the most numerous and are representative at sectoral level).

Main trade union confederations and federations

Note: * Estimated figures, based on the representatives’ files available on the Ministry of Labour and Social Solidarity’s website.

About employer representation

Employers are free to form or join an employer organisation. An employer organisation can be affiliated only to a hierarchically superior employer organisation.

The Social Dialogue Law stipulates that employer organisations that pursue national representativeness must account, through their affiliated companies, for at least 7% of the total workforce in the economy (excluding public sector employees). The employer federations must account, through their members, for at least 10% of the total workforce in the relevant sector.

The effect of these legal provisions was a decrease in the number of nationally representative confederations, from 12 in 2011 to 3 in 2023.

In the following section, we list the confederations of employer organisations representative at national level and the most important federations of employer organisations (with the most members and representative at sectoral level) in 2023.

Employer organisation membership and density, 2012–2019 (%)

Notes: * Percentage of employees working in an establishment that is a member of any employer organisation that is involved in collective bargaining. n.a., not available.

Main employer organisations and confederations

The Ministry of Labour and Social Solidarity documents the most representative employer federations and confederations.

Main employer organisations and confederations

Note: * Estimated figures, based on the representatives’ files available on the Ministry of Labour and Social Solidarity’s website.

Tripartite social dialogue is organised at national, territorial and sectoral levels. In an attempt to reform social dialogue at all levels, the composition of the CES – a tripartite body for social dialogue at national level – was modified in 2011. After the 2011 legislative change (the implementation of Law No. 62/2011), the government representatives left the CES and were replaced by representatives of civil society, which, in the opinion of some stakeholders, transformed the council from a tripartite body into a bipartite social dialogue structure. The CES is a consultative forum and must be consulted on all the draft laws in its areas of competence (economy, taxes, labour, social protection, health, education, research, culture and wages).

The Social Dialogue Law of 2011 (Law No. 62/2011) provided for the formation of a new body for social dialogue: the CNTDS, a tripartite consultative body formed by representatives of employer organisations, trade unions, the government, the National Bank and the president of the CES. The CNTDS is the consultative forum for setting the minimum wage at national level; for analysing governmental strategies and programmes; and for solving, through tripartite dialogue, economic and social disputes. On several occasions, trade unions accused the government of not convening the CNTDS regularly or not adequately preparing for the body’s meetings and thus obstructing social dialogue. Therefore, the new Social Dialogue Law provides for a procedure for regularly convening the CNTDS.

At local level, social dialogue commissions are established at prefecture level. The participants consist of representatives of local government, representatives of each nationally representative confederation and other relevant stakeholders, should their presence be agreed on.

At national level, tripartite social dialogue committees are formed within 18 public authorities and institutions, such as the Ministry of Labour and Social Solidarity, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Health.

Main tripartite and bipartite bodies

Employees are represented in the workplace by trade unions at company level. There are no works councils or other bodies at company level in Romania that ensure employee representation. A trade union can be formed by at least 10 employees working in the same establishment or 20 employees working in the same sector. In companies with more than 10 employees but without a trade union, the workers are represented by employee representatives.

Legislation providing for the establishment of European works councils was introduced in 2005, but the law only applies to ‘community-scale undertakings’ (undertakings with at least 1,000 employees in the Member States and at least 150 employees in each of at least 2 Member States).

Regulation, composition and competences of the representative bodies