Achievements and problems of a decade of tripartite social partnership assessed

In May 2005, the Tripartite Council of the Republic of Lithuania - the country's top-level national social dialogue institution - will have been in operation for 10 years. Over this period the Council has become an established public institution playing an active role in Lithuania's social and economic policy, though it appears that there are a number of problems that it must tackle in future.

In May 2005, the Tripartite Council of the Republic of Lithuania (Lietuvos Respublikos trišalė taryba, LRTT) - the top-level national social dialogue institution (LT0501103F) - will commemorate the 10th anniversary of the launch of its activities.

The evidence on the activities of the LRTT seem to be quite positive. Each year about 11 sittings have been held, around 600 social and economic issues have been discussed over the 10 years of its existence, and four permanent committees are functioning under the auspices of the LRTT. The LRTT is regularly performing its key task of submitting conclusions and recommendations to the government and parliament on draft legislation and various social and economic issues. Social partnership at different levels is governed by various regulations, and the status of the LRTT is defined by relevant articles of the Labour Code (Darbo kodeksas, DK), while the regulation dealing with the government contains provisions as to the obligation to consult the LRTT and to submit its conclusions on draft legislation to parliament. This mechanism has now been operating for a decade without any serious problems being observed. The government invests quite a lot in the social dialogue by providing various forms of support to the social partners (training, seminars, specialised literature, radio broadcasts etc). The secretariat of the LRTT is maintained with state budgetary funds and is responsible for various preliminary and organisational tasks. Every two years, the Council approves plans for its key tasks and then makes efforts to implement them.

In February 1999, the government and national trade union and employers’ organisations signed a political agreement on cooperation and the avoidance of industrial action. The partners have since basically adhered to this agreement. There have been no industrial action, major strikes or nationwide protest action reported recently. Therefore, social partnership and the situation of the social dialogue in Lithuania are assessed quite positively by commentators in both quantitative and qualitative terms. Nevertheless several problems and future challenges have been raised in terms of the development of social partnership in Lithuania.

Current problems and future challenges

First, it should be noted that in Lithuania there are no exact information on the representativeness of two main employers’ organisations (LT0410102F) and three main trade union centres (LT0412102F). These organisations provide either inconsistent or unspecific information on their membership. There is evidence that collective bargaining is in progress and that agreements are concluded at enterprise level, but the exact number of collective agreements signed and the number of employees covered by them is unknown. There is no public authority that is obliged to gather data about agreements concluded at enterprise level. Though some attempts are made regularly to assess the coverage of employees by collective agreements, individual experts put the proportion at between 10% and 20%. The social partners agree with the necessity to establish registers of consistent information about their organisations, and in 2005 the LRTT is expected to adopt decisions concerning the means of information collection in this area.

Even if the issues relating to the collection of data about social partner organisations are resolved, some questions have been raised with regard to the powers of central employers’ organisations. According to information provided by the secretariat of the LRTT, the two national-level employers’ confederations group only about 7% of total number of enterprises. Recently, the Association of Trade Enterprises, probably one of the largest employers’ associations, with about 100,000 employees employed by member enterprises (according to the LRTT secretariat) left the Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists (Lietuvos Pramonininkų konfederacija, LPK). Owners of retail chains say that trade unions will be never formed in their undertakings, as there is 'no need' for them. When. a couple of years ago, the issue of days off for commerce staff on public holidays was raised, this proposal was strongly opposed by the sector's employers, which threatened to dismiss immediately 10% of employees if the proposed decision were adopted. The government and trade unions conceded to the employers' 'blackmail' and retail chains continue to operate without any such days off, though wages in this sector are among the lowest. It was proposed to give powers of representation of employers’ interests to the Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Crafts (Lietuvos pramonės, prekybos ir amatų rūmai), but such proposals were opposed by the employers’ confederations.

Another issue is that no sectoral collective agreements are registered in Lithuania, with consultations and bargaining between employers and trade unions in progress for several years having been fruitless so far. Despite trade unions’ efforts, sectoral employers’ associations have not been engaging in bargaining. This may be caused by the prevailing low activity and weakness of trade unions, which is influenced by disunity of the trade unions, competition among them and the absence of a common opinion on tackling various problems. At the moment, the possibility of the trade union centres joining together in one confederation is discussed more and more often. However, there are fears in some quarters that it would be harmful to the quality of trade unions' work if there were only one trade union confederation in the country, operating without any competition. Quite a number of ordinary trade union members say that they do not care which centre they belong to, and they press their leaders to overcome personal ambitions and unite with other centres or at least to look for common decisions on many relevant issues.

New problems were faced in 2004 when Lithuania joined the EU and the social partners delegated their representatives to the European Economic and Social Committee and other EU institutions. There is at present no mechanism to try and achieve a consensus among the Lithuanian social partners with regard to draft EU legislation. The Ministry of Social Security and Labour (Socialinės apsaugos ir darbo ministerija, SADM), the authority most of interested in the development of social partnership, is looking for ways to resolve this problem.

Some of these problems will, it is believed, be settled in the near future. In January 2005, the LRTT approved its two-year joint action plan for 2005-6 (LT0502105N). Among other issues, this plan provides for the initiation of bargaining at sectoral as well as regional level, the creation of a system for calculating the membership of trade unions and employers’ organisations, the improvement of laws governing the activities of employers and trade unions, and consultations over the resolution of various problems. Some actions have already been taken in this regard: both employers’ confederations have signed an agreement to make decisions on relevant issues only after interim consultations; while trade unions are increasingly referring to a need to coordinate positions instead of acting separately.

Over the LRTT's 10 years of activity there have been no periods that could be called 'critical' and generally it is thought that, despite the abovementioned problems, the LRTT is an established public institution whose activities have considerable weight in seeking well-balanced decisions in the social and economic sphere.

Commentary

Looking at the decade of the LRTT's existence, it should be noted that representatives of the government perform probably the most important role at the Council. However, an opinion is emerging that the model of the European Economic and Social Committee should be implemented in Lithuania, whereby representatives of the government would not directly participate in the dialogue. This proposal has been so far opposed by representatives of employers and trade unions, who say that this step is premature, as employers and trade union organisations are not mature enough for independent bilateral discussions and the participation of the representatives of the government is thus still necessary. However, in any case the present model of national-level social dialogue can hardly be maintained for long, as quite a lot of issues relevant to the public (eg environmental protection, healthcare, or emigration of the population) have not been tackled in essence by the institutions of social dialogue. (Mindaugas Kuraitis, head of the secretariat of LRTT)