Controversy persists over public employee councils

Long-postponed elections to 'public employee councils'- works council-type bodies in the Hungarian public service sector - are due to be held in autumn 2004. As the elections approach, trade unions are calling for the abolition of these councils, which they see as unnecessarily duplicating the role of workplace-level union organisations.

In 1992, works councils were introduced in the 'competitive' part of the economy (ie business companies and non-for-profit organisations), subject to the Labour Code, and 'public employee councils' were introduced in the public service sector, subject to the Act on Public Service Employees (HU0401106F). These bodies were set up in the context of a decentralised industrial relations system, in which workplace level trade unions had been the major bargaining agents and the backbone of the unions. Works councils and public employee councils were practically granted the package of information and consultation rights which unions had exercised in previous decades under the title of 'participation of employees in the management of their companies'. According to relevant legal regulations, works council and public employee council elections should be held every three years.

Although trade unions at first agreed to the introduction of works councils and public employee councils, over the 1990s their hostility towards these institutions increased palpably. Public sector unions especially regard public employees councils as superfluous, unnecessarily duplicating the role of workplace-level unions. In 2001, public sector unions successfully lobbied to postpone elections for public employee councils to the next year, when they managed to have the elections postponed for another two years on the grounds that the government was preparing a bill to harmonise the regulations on employment relations for public service employees and civil servants. Consequently, the next elections of public employee councils are due in autumn 2004.

In an interview in early March 2004, the general secretary of the Trade Union of Hungarian Public Employees and Civil Servants (Magyar Közalkalmazottak és Köztisztviselők Szakszervezete, MKKSZ), one of the major unions in the public administration, argued that a final decision should be made on public employee councils. He suggested that this institution should be abolished and workplace-level unions should be strengthened by granting them the rights currently granted to public employee councils. Similarly, János Vadász, the state secretary responsible for the reform of public services and a former union leader, argued that the best solution would be to scrap public employee councils. He said that he had initiated the postponement of elections to public employee councils until the uniform codification of public employment relationships is completed in order to offer a clear method for measuring union representativeness.