The Mediation and Arbitration Service and the development of collective bargaining

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Greece's Mediation and Arbitration Service (OMED) has been in operation since 1992, and its lifetime has coincided with the implementation period of Law 1876/1990 on "free collective bargaining". This review of OMED's activities from 1992 to 1998 highlights collective bargaining policies in Greece in the 1990s and the emergence of collective agreements as the pre-eminent instrument in the regulation of industrial relations.

Collective bargaining before 1990

Before 1990, Greece's industrial relations system was deeply affected by the state interventionist methods of resolving collective disputes and regulating industrial relations laid down in Law 3239/1955, then in force. The main characteristics of Law 3239/1955 were:

• state interventionism. The law recognised the right of the public administration to intervene in the process of collective bargaining and resolve collective disputes by compulsory arbitration conducted by the public administration itself; and

• "legalism"in collective bargaining. The law's regulations restricted the flexibility of collective bargaining and created extensive legal disputes which had to be resolved by the courts.

The side effect of the these characteristics was the underdevelopment of a collective bargaining culture among employers, their organisations and the trade unions. Furthermore, the content of collective agreements was poor and restricted. Accordingly, legislation emerged as the only effective source of labour law regulations, underlining the political power and competence of the state to initiate and enforce terms and conditions of employment.

Collective bargaining in the 1990s

The 1990s began with the introduction of an effective legal framework for bargaining in Greece - Law 1876/1990. The new law removed state interventionism from the domain of collective bargaining and established dialogue and consensus between employers' and employees' organisations as the regulatory source for collective bargaining and the settlement of industrial disputes.

The main thrust of the law is to support and encourage the parties (employers organisations, or individual employers and the trade unions) to develop dialogue and procedural consensus or agreements to settle their collective disputes. The key principles of the new law are the following:

• voluntarism. The recognition that collective bargaining procedures should be organised on the initiative of the parties and by consensus between them. This principle is also extended to mediation and arbitration proceedings, as established by law, and underlines the rules for the appointment of mediators and arbitrators and the settlement of all issues for negotiation, bargaining practices and so on by agreements between the parties;

• decentralisation. Encouragement is given for collective agreements to be conducted at company level, thus decentralising regulations concluded at industry and occupational level with national or local applicability; and

• independent dispute settlement. The establishment of an independent organisation to provide mediation and arbitration services for the settlement of collective industrial relations disputes (see below).

Key issues and innovative features of the new law

Law 1876/1990 introduced the following new regulations:

• extension of the applicability of collective agreement s to cover all forms of work;

• expansion of the content and regulatory framework of collective agreements. This now covers issues such as wages, benefits, leave, methods of overtime payment, conditions of recruitment and dismissal, trade union rights, company internal regulations, health and safety regulations, worker's education and training, productivity issues and company policy affecting industrial relations;

• recognition of the right of the negotiating parties to create their own system of collective bargaining by agreement among themselves. This system may replace the system established by law 1876/1990 or may apply in a complementary way;

• introduction of the right and obligation to bargain for all parties;

• introduction of a worker's right to information and an employers' responsibility to provide all necessary information affecting employment policy;

• introduction of the principle of dialogue in good faith, which encourages the parties to resolve their disputes by collective agreements. Accordingly, the implementation of arbitration, as a dispute settlement procedure, is purely subsidiary to collective agreements and constitutes the ultimate tool to avoid the deregulation of collective agreements and employment conditions established by them; and

• advancement of company- and industry-level collective agreements with the aim of bringing about the decentralisation of collective agreements and decreasing the importance of collective agreements for specific occupations.

OMED - the independent mediation and arbitration body

The Mediation and Arbitration Service (OMED) operates as an independent, non-for-profit organisation for the purpose of providing objective and reliable mediation and arbitration services, aimed at achieving collective labour agreements. The establishment and operation of OMED by law 1876/1990 is the cornerstone of the new collective industrial relations system replacing the state interventionism of the dispute-resolution regime previously provided by Law 3239/1955.

OMED is directed by a tripartite board with 11 members. The majority of board members are representatives of employers' associations and trade unions (three representatives each), supplemented by industrial relations experts introduced by the Greek universities (three), one independent person of standing and one representative of the Ministry of Labour.

Mediation and arbitration services are provided by the "body of mediators and arbitrators" who selected by the executive council of OMED, following a call for expressions of interest to serve as independent mediators and arbitrators under the administrative support of OMED. There are 23 mediators and arbitrators, and they are all highly-qualified experts on industrial relations (labour law, labour economics, human resources administration and management).

Mediation and arbitration services are provided free of charge and they are impartial and confidential, in terms of equality and transparency for all the parties involved. Such services are provided to the parties based on the principle of dialogue in good faith and documentation aimed at the settlement of collective disputes by agreement. Thus a balance is struck between employers and employees' interests to create mutual understanding in search of mutually accepted solutions.

Administrative and scientific support for all services of OMED is provided by its staff, which develops activities aimed at advancing training, research, and publications on collective industrial relations issues, which are supplementary to the mediation and arbitration services.

The activities of OMED, 1992-8

During the first six years of operation of OMED (1992-8), the activities developed can be divided in two groups, the main and the supplementary activities.

Main activities

The main activities of OMED concentrate on mediation and arbitration in support of the collective bargaining system, as follows:

• mediation and arbitration services to help regulate labour conditions through collective agreements (regulations regarding wages, benefits to workers, sex equality policies, working time, trade union rights etc); and

• mediation services to appoint security staff in the event of strikes, as well as special bargaining to defuse conflicts which may give rise to strikes.

Table 1 shows the numbers of mediation and arbitration cases, the number of collective agreements concluded with the support of OMED services and the percentage of all Greek collective agreements concluded through OMED. The figures underline the orientation towards an interventionist role for mediators and arbitrators in collective bargaining.