Messios, Orestis

In February 2006, in a joint memorandum entitled /Legal Enactment and Legislation of the Right of Workers to Join a Trade Union Organisation and Bargain Collectively/, the country’s main trade union organisations – the Democratic Labour Federation of Cyprus (DEOK [1]), Pancyprian Federation of Labour (PEO [2]) and Cyprus Workers’ Confederation (SEK [3]) – requested that the Ministry of Labour and Social Insurance [4] initiate social dialogue on the modernisation of the system of industrial relations in Cyprus (*CY0602104F* [5]). The joint memorandum proposed new procedures to ensure the right to organise and to regulate trade union recognition/representativeness for collective bargaining purposes. The trade unions also proposed that collective agreements should become legally enforceable, thus obliging employers to comply with the relevant collective agreements. Although a request to speed up the procedures was also put forward later in July 2006 (*CY0607019I* [6]), it was only in May 2008 that the issue was referred for examination to a Tripartite Technical Committee (TTC) under the chairmanship of the Department of Labour Relations, when a first preliminary working document was submitted. [1] http://www.deok.org.cy [2] http://www.peo.org.cy/ [3] http://www.sek.org.cy/ [4] http://www.mlsi.gov.cy [5] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/unions-seek-social-dialogue-on-modernisation-of-industrial-relations [6] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/unions-push-for-social-dialogue-on-modernising-industrial-relations

The project on Social Dialogue Capacity Building at sectoral and company levels is a follow-up of a similar project held at a national level in 2005. The methodology used included carrying out interviews with members of the nationally recognised representative organisations of employers and employees in the eligible countries – Cyprus in this case - and collecting their views of the capacity of their members' organisations. The report reflect their views for the sectoral/branch- and enterprise-level developments.

This report is part of a series of projects from the Foundation which focuses on aspects of industrial relations in the run-up to enlargement. The national report for Cyprus is part of the second phase of a project on ‘Social dialogue and EMU’ carried out by the Foundation in 2002-3, in cooperation with the Swedish ‘Work Life and EU Enlargement’ programme. This paper aims to examine conflict resolution mechanisms in Cyprus and to assess the system’s effectiveness in preserving industrial peace. The main report (EF0421) provides an overview of the whole project, looking at the current mechanisms for resolving industrial conflicts prevailing in each of the ten acceding countries involved in the project.