New law on collective bargaining in public administration

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A new law published in September 1999 means that, for the first time, Greece's public servants have a right to negotiate their terms and conditions of employment and to conclude collective agreements. However, pay and pensions are excluded from formal bargaining, a point which has caused some disagreement within the ADEDY public sector trade union confederation.

On 9 September 1999, Law 2738/1999 regarding "collective bargaining in the public administration, permanent status for workers employed under open-ended contracts and other provisions" was published in the Government Gazette. For the first time in Greece, this law gives public servants a statutory right to negotiate their terms and conditions of employment and to conclude collective agreements.

Scope and content of collective labour agreements

The provisions of Chapter A of Law 2738/1999 apply to all salaried public servants under public-law employment relationships, including employees of public entities, and first- and second-level local authorities, and state judicial employees. Exempted from its provisions are diplomatic staff, doctors employed in the National Health System (ESY) and parliamentary staff. Collective agreements may contain provisions related to:

• placement, movement, transfer or posting of the employees included under the provisions of the law;

• employees' education and training - preliminary, intermediate, advanced training, branch or general vocational training, and continuing training;

• health and safety measures, provided that obligatory legal rules are not affected;

• social insurance, apart from pension-related matters.

• exercise of trade union rights, provision of trade union facilities and the manner in which trade union dues are deducted and paid to the unions;

• matters related to leave in general;

• issues regarding working time, on the condition that provision of services to citizens is not restricted or impaired, and that the health and safety of persons or protection of public interests are not placed in jeopardy; and

• interpretation of the terms of collective agreements.

It is noted that a "peace obligation" may be stipulated in collective agreements with regard to the specific issues to which they refer.

Levels of collective bargaining

General collective agreements which regulate the overall terms and conditions of employment of employees covered by Law 2738/1999 are to be drawn up following negotiations between these employees' most representative third-level trade union organisation (ie confederation) and the state at the central level.

Special collective agreements may regulate all issues which by their nature need to be addressed more specifically or have to do with particularities and particular working conditions, on the condition however that they have been accepted for inclusion in the general collective agreement. Such agreements are to be drawn up for Ministries, supervising public entities and independent public services, following negotiations carried out between the competent public sector bodies and the most representative second-level trade union organisation (ie federation). In cases where there is more than one representative second-level sectoral or occupational trade union organisation in the respective workplaces, bargaining is carried out between the competent body representing the state and all second-level trade union organisations (on the basis of the positions the latter have formed in common). For negotiations on issues concerning first- and second-level local authority employees, representatives of the Central Union of Municipalities and Communes of Greece (KEDKE) or the Union of Prefectural Governments of Greece (ENAE) respectively shall also be present at the negotiations.

One of the points noted with regard to the bargaining procedure is that the workers' side is entitled to demand from the other side full and precise information to facilitate the negotiations on the matters under discussion.

Termination of collective agreements and mediation procedure

Fixed-term or open-ended collective agreements enter into force on the date they are published in the Government Gazette and expire when their agreed term has elapsed or when they are terminated. Under Article 9 of Law 2738/1999, an open-ended collective agreement may be terminated one year after its entry into force. A collective agreement may be terminated sooner than one year after its entry into force or before expiry only in the event that the conditions existing when it was concluded have changed significantly. In the event that negotiations on drawing up collective agreements are unsuccessful, the parties concerned may request the services of a mediator. The mediation process begins when the parties concerned lodge the appropriate request, which they may submit jointly or separately within a time limit of five days after the completion of negotiations which resulted in disagreement. If, in spite of mediation, the parties do not reach an agreement within 10 calendar days, the mediator has the right to submit its own proposal, which the parties are requested to accept or reject within 10 days of the proposal's announcement.

Informal agreements

Under Article 13 of Law 2738/1999, collective bargaining to regulate questions of employees' terms and conditions of employment which cannot be regulated according to the provisions of the law due to constitutional constraints, primarily including questions of wages and pensions, may result in an "informal agreement". Such an agreement does not constitute a collective agreement, but it does involve either the issuing of normative acts, provided the issues covered by the agreement can be regulated in this way, or the furtherance of the relevant legislative regulation of the issues covered by the agreement. The negotiation procedure for informal agreements is carried out separately but in parallel with that of collective agreements, and proceeds through exactly the same stages.

Positions of the parties

Both the government and the Confederation of Public Servants (ADEDY) limited themselves to brief statements about the new law to the media, and did not proceed to make more detailed announcements. From the government side, the Minister of the Interior, Public Administration and Decentralisation called Law 2738/1999 "a watershed in the Greek administrative system and in the relations between public servants and the Greek state, as well as an important step towards democratisation of public administration". On behalf of the unions, the president of the ADEDY, in a letter to the Prime Minister in the context of the 64th HELEXPO International Trade Fair in Thessaloniki, stated that ADEDY hopes that "the new institution of collective bargaining will help address the problems of the public administration and create a culture of dialogue in the executive authority, so as to avoid addressing serious problems through unilateral practices."

However, in contrast to the majority of its members, left-leaning factions within ADEDY are demanding that the whole law be withdrawn. In their view, Law 2738/1999 fraudulently bears the title "collective bargaining in the public administration"; they state that the regulations on collective bargaining in the public sector fail to lay down any basic collective rights for public sector workers, because crucial issues such as wages and pensions are excluded from the procedure for arriving at collective agreements. In fact, this point is in concurrence with the observations and positions of ADEDY on the relevant provisions of the draft legislation, communicated by the ADEDY executive committee by letter to the then Minister of the Interior, Public Administration and Decentralisation on 15 May 1998. The letter contends that the law's primary weakness is that it fails to provide for the right to conclude collective agreements on all issues pertaining to the terms and conditions of employment of public servants.

Commentary

It is evident that adoption of Law 2738/1999, at least as regards provision for the right of public servants to negotiate their terms and conditions of employment and to draw up collective agreements, meets one of their trade union movement's long-standing demands, which in recent years has been promoted and put forward by all public servants' organisations (GR9809190N). In ADEDY' s view, the fact that the government points to constitutional constraints (Articles 80 and 103 of the Constitution), in relation to the inability to sign a collective agreement on wages and pensions and to create permanent posts, does not negate the political objective, which is the expression of the government's real desire that collective bargaining lead to a binding agreement on these issues as well. In this framework, ADEDY notes that formal application of this agreement will rest with the government, which will assume responsibility for issuing the respective administrative acts or bringing the relevant laws before parliament for a vote, within a specific timeframe. In this context, in view of a revision of the Constitution, ADEDY is seeking constitutional safeguards and amendments which will ensure that collective agreements can be negotiated and concluded on all issues regarding public servants' terms and conditions of employment. Failure to achieve this will give rise to legitimate questions concerning the effectiveness of the bargaining power of the public servants' trade union movement. (Eva Soumeli, INE/GSEE-ADEDY).