Blaziene, Inga

The Labour Code of the Republic of Lithuania (Lietuvos Respublikos Darbo Kodeksas, DK [1]) was finally adopted on 4 June 2002, following a decade of drafting and debate, and came into effect from 1 January 2003. Before the Labour Code came into force, employment relations were governed by numerous laws (such as the Laws on the Employment Contract, Wages, Holidays, and Collective Agreements and Contracts) and secondary legislation. The Code's implementation materially changed the legal governance of employment relations. It particularly emphasises the facilitation and development of social dialogue: a number of issues that had been strictly governed by legislation (or rather the state) were transferred to the field regulated by collective bargaining, thus encouraging the social partners to enter into collective agreements, not only at company level, but also at sectoral, regional or national levels. Among the most significant innovations was that the Code not only enshrines for the first time a concept of social partnership, along with its basic principles, parties, levels, forms and system, but also explicitly defines the right of employees to information and consultation as well as, for example, reforming employee representation and the termination of employment relationships. [1] http://www3.lrs.lt/cgi-bin/preps2?Condition1=169334&Condition2=

A Law on Works Councils (Lietuvos Respublikos darbo tarybų įstatymas [1]) was adopted by parliament (the Seimas) on 26 October 2004. The legislation lays down the status of works councils and their composition and activities (and the basis for terminating these activities), and regulates the rights and obligations of works councils and their members, and guarantees for the members. [1] http://www3.lrs.lt/cgi-bin/preps2?Condition1=242566&Condition2=

According to data from Lithuanian Statistics [1] (Lietuvos statistikos departamentas), in 2002 there were 62,270 enterprises in Lithuania. Their breakdown by size is given in the table below. [1] http://www.std.lt/

EU Directive 94/45/EC [1] on the establishment of a European Works Council (EWC) or a procedure in Community-scale undertakings and Community-scale groups of undertakings for the purposes of informing and consulting employees was implemented in Lithuania by the Law on European Works Councils (Lietuvos Respublikos Europos darbo tarybų įstatymas [2]), adopted on 19 February 2004. [1] http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnumdoc&lg=EN&numdoc=31994L0045&model=guichett [2] http://www3.lrs.lt/cgi-bin/preps2?Condition1=228405&Condition2=

The Labour Code (Lietuvos Respublikos darbo kodeksas [1]) stipulates that national minimum hourly and monthly wages are to be laid down by the government upon submission of a proposal by Lithuania's top-level tripartite body - the Tripartite Council of the Republic of Lithuania (Lietuvos Respublikos Trišalė taryba, LRTT [2]). Moreover, the Code stipulates that, on the recommendation of the LRTT, the government can specify different minimum hourly and minimum monthly wages for different economic sectors, regions or employee groups. The minimum wages stipulated in collective agreements can be higher than those specified by the government. [1] http://www3.lrs.lt/cgi-bin/preps2?Condition1=169334&Condition2= [2] http://www.lrtt.lt/