Bipartite agreement on vocational training signed

In February 2006, the Portuguese union and employer confederations concluded a bipartite agreement on vocational and educational training (VET). The agreement seeks to improve the implementation of Labour Code measures that resulted from the tripartite social pact set up in February 2001. It also aims to include VET as a priority in collective bargaining; to strengthen the social partners’ position in all relevant bodies concerning VET; and to create new tools to support and monitor VET.

In February 2006, all unions and employer confederations represented at the tripartite Standing Commission for Social Concertation (Comissão Permanente de Concertação Social, CPCS) signed a bipartite Agreement regarding vocational training (Acordo visando a Formação Profissional, AFP 2006).

On the employers’ side, the four confederations represented were the following: the Confederation of Portuguese Industry (Confederação da Indústria Portuguesa, CIP), the Portuguese Trade and Services Confederation (Confederação do Comércio e Serviços de Portugal, CCP), the Confederation of Portuguese Farmers (Confederação dos Agricultores de Portugal, CAP) and the Portuguese Confederation of Tourism (Confederação do Turismo Português, CTP). On the employee side, the two confederations represented were the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores Portugueses, CGTP) and the General Workers’ Union (União Geral de Trabalhadores, UGT).

Context

The AFP 2006 continues the tripartite national-level concertation on vocational training that started in 1990. The first specific agreement regarding vocational training was signed in the CPCS in 1991 (PT0001179F). The results of this agreement, however, were limited and, 10 years later, in February 2001, a second agreement was concluded that was more specific and ambitious regarding vocational training (PT0102134F). An important part of the measures in the AFP 2001 were later included in the 2003 Labour Code, and also in the 2004 regulation that followed, which is currently in force (PT0501202F).

The majority of companies in Portugal have been slow to make use of the AFP 2001 and to respond to the subsequent legislation. In 2003, the General Directorate for Studies, Statistics and Planning (Direcção-Geral de Estudos, Estatística e Planeamento, DGEEP) published the findings of a questionnaire survey to a representative sample of 5,500 companies: the results showed that only 18.7% of the companies surveyed had carried out vocational training.

According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in Education at a glance 2005, only 20% of the active Portuguese population has completed secondary level education. The average number of years at school is 8.2 years in Portugal, compared with the 12-year average observed in OECD countries. According to the National Statistics Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estatística, INE), some 2.6 million persons did not even complete compulsory schooling (nine years). Thus, about 485,000 young employees (45% of all young employees) are working without having completed secondary level education and, of these, 266,000 did not complete their compulsory schooling.

Both AFP 1991 and AFP 2001 were tripartite agreements signed by the government and by the social partner organisations. Tripartite agreements have been the rule of social concertation in Portugal over the period 1986–2001. The first exception to tripartite agreements was the bilateral agreement of January 2005 for improving the dynamics of collective bargaining (Acordo visando a Dinamização da Contratação Colectiva, ADCC 2005). In this sense, the AFP 2006 indicates increased autonomy of the social partner organisations in relation to the government, opening a new era in Portuguese social concertation.

The agreement

On the basis of a common commitment to promoting VET within their own organisations and among their affiliates, the signatories have committed themselves in particular:

• to support continuous VET and workers’ initiatives in this regard, proposing the introduction of a ‘training cheque’ to be regulated by the National Council for Vocational Training (Conselho Nacional de Formação Profissional, CNFP);

• to encourage company investment in VET, suggesting that micro and small enterprises should receive support from the state for their efforts in doing so;

• to respect the information and consultation rights of trade unions in the area of VET at company level;

• to foster collective bargaining on VET, with the aim of preparing specific plans for promoting it at industry level;

• to support the creation of monitoring tools to follow up on the provision of minimum training hours according to the legal framework.

Furthermore, the signatories call for:

• a national plan designed to raise the awareness of all relevant actors in relation to the importance of VET;

• an assessment (with the social partners’ participation) of needs in the area of VET at national, sectoral and regional level;

• a systematic and comprehensive survey on existing VET measures (to be published on the Internet);

• the creation of a tripartite commission at the Labour Ministry in order to make the ‘training clause’ effective, and to propose adequate measures. The training clause was already part of the AFP 2001 and outlines measures to guarantee access to VET for young employees who did not complete compulsory education;

• the effective establishment of the National Consultative Council for Vocational Training (Conselho Consultivo Nacional para a Formação Profissional, CCNFP), the formation of which was agreed in 2001;

• stronger participation of the social partners in the governing bodies of the Institute for Employment and Vocational Training (Instituto de Emprego e Formação Profissional, IEFP), the Institute for Quality of Training (Instituto para a Qualidade na Formação, IQF) and the National Tourism Training Institute (Instituto de Formação Turistica, INFTUR).

In order to implement the agreement, the signatories have committed themselves to the following:

• to nominate a responsible contact person in each of the confederations;

• to hold bimonthly meetings regarding the agreement’s execution;

• to make an evaluation of the agreement after a year;

• to invite the government to ‘associate itself to the agreement’.

Views of the signatories

The main differences between employers and unions in the negotiation process centred around how to ensure the right of access to VET that is included in the Labour Code. The law stipulates that all employees are entitled to an annual minimum of 35 hours of certified VET (up to 55 hours in 2006), and defines the implementation of the training clause for young employees (between 16 and 18 years) who did not complete compulsory education and who do not have professional skills.

Both the union and employer confederations emphasised the contribution of the AFP 2006 in overcoming the lack of skills and competencies among the labour force in order to improve the quality of employment as well as enhance economic competitiveness.

Since the beginning of the negotiations, the union confederations, CGTP and UGT, have been in favour of an agreement to implement the right to ongoing training for those employed in micro and small companies, and to improve initial training, as set out in the Labour Code. Moreover, CGTP and UGT highlighted the importance of the AFP 2006 in giving priority to VET in collective bargaining and setting rules with regard to initial and ongoing training. UGT considers that the bipartite agreement improves the conditions for a better tripartite social dialogue. Following the agreement, CGTP is initiating a campaign to implement the right to vocational training.

Employer confederations pointed to the difficulties in applying the Labour Code rules on VET in the context of Portugal’s production model. The employer confederation CIP outlined the importance of AFP 2006 in improving the quality of VET and in providing better information on its supply. CIP considered the demand for a stronger participation of the social partners in the VET institutional bodies as a relevant request. Neither the farmers’confederation, CAP, nor CIP regarded as problematic the fact that the government did not participate in this agreement. The president of CIP declared that the idea was not to marginalise the government but ‘to give a positive signal to society that there is a good rapport between the social partners’.

Maria da Paz Campos Lima and Reinhard Naumann, DINÂMIA