Social partners reject proposed change in strike legislation

The Czech Republic’s Minister of Labour and Social Affairs is preparing a new bill on strikes and lockouts. The bill aims to bring some uniformity to the country’s fragmented rules on strikes, including setting out the definition a strike, its participants, and strike-calling procedures. Social partners were given an opportunity to comment on the proposed legislation during consultations that ended on 31 July 2012, and raised serious concerns about it.

Existing strike legislation

The right to strike in the Czech Republic is laid down by the country’s Act No. 2/1993 Coll., Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. Article 27 (4) of the Charter, declared to be part of the Constitution of the Czech Republic, says in that ‘the right to strike is guaranteed under the conditions stipulated by law’.

Article 41 (1) of the same document says that ‘the rights specified in Art. 27 (4) can be enforced only within the scope of the laws that are implementing this provision’. The only regulation that governs a stike, pursuant to the above-mentioned articles of the Charter, is the Act No. 2/1991 Coll. on collective bargaining. It sets out special regulations that apply only to strikes called in relation to disputes over the conclusion of collective agreements. However, this law predates the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedom.

Strikes are also mentioned in Czech legislation in the Constitutional Act No. 110/1998 Coll. on the security of the Czech Republic, and in Act No. 240/2000 Coll. on crisis management (crisis law), in all cases recognising strikes for economic and social interests.

No other legal regulations regarding strikes and lockouts have been adopted in Czech legislation and this makes enforcement of the right to strike difficult, and its interpretation is left to the courts.

Preparations for new legislation

The first attempts to develop general legislation covering strikes and lockouts were made as early as in 1997 in response to a strike by railway employees. However, unions disapproved of the proposals and the government abandoned the planned changes.

The most recent significant initiative to reform the regulations followed a transport employees’ strike in June 2011 (CZ1106019I). The government resolution No. 444/2011 of 11 June 2011 instructed the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs and the Minister of Justice to begin intensive preparation of legislation on the right to strike. The purpose of the new legislation, in particular, is to:

• define the right to strike, and in particular define such terms as a strike and a lockout, a striker, a strike organiser, and define the rules for procedures on such issues as deadlines and who must be notified;

• improve legal assurances for the enforceability of the right to strike provided in Article 41 of the Charter;

• reduce the number of potential legal disputes on the illegal nature of strikes;

• improve the demarcation of decision-making for a potential dispute on the illegal nature of a strike;

• reduce the economic impact of the strikes that would be considered illegal under the subject-matter of the bill;

• regulate lockouts as a right of employers’ collective action.

Both trade unionists and employers unhappy

The bill proposed by the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, Jaromír Drábek, and the Minister of Justice, Jiří Pospíšil, has been emphatically rejected by the Czech-Moravian Confederation of Trade Unions (ČMKOS). The union said:

The regulation contained in the bill is contradictory to the Constitutional Rules of the Czech Republic, tends to weaken the democratic nature of the functioning of social dialogue, collective bargaining and civil rights, and consequently also to weaken the democratic management of public affairs in the Czech Republic.

The proposal, according to ČMKOS, makes a strike and a lockout administratively complicated, and the union also criticises, among other things, the fact that a strike could only be called by a trade union. It believes it is wrong to exclude other groups of people from having the ability to call a strike.

ČMKOS Chair Jaroslav Zavadil says the existing law on collective bargaining is sufficient, and there is no need to change it.

A similar stand on the bill has been taken by the Confederation of Employer and Entrepreneur Associations of the Czech Republic (KZPS ČR), which also wants to keep the existing legislation. The KZPS commented:

[It is] obvious that the proposer of the bill did not accept any of the employers’ comments – on the contrary: the result is a bill that is absolutely unacceptable for employers and that complies with, or rather yields to, the comments of the staff of ministries and employee representatives.

Trade unionists have asked for a full withdrawal of the bill. However, the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs is not planning to withdraw it and is hoping for further discussions on the issue.

Soňa Veverková, Research Institute for Labour and Social Affairs