Bulgarian labour law amended

Following its adoption in parliament, a bill amending and supplementing the Labour Code concerning the regulation of employment relations with respect to information and consultation came into effect on 1 July 2006. A second draft bill – amending the Collective Disputes Settlement Act – is expected to come into force in September 2006.

Amending the Labour Code

The Bulgarian Council of Ministers submitted a draft bill amending and supplementing the Labour Code in the area of information and consultation of employees (BG0603019I); this was duly adopted and came into effect on 1 July 2006. The amendment was necessary in the light of the recommendations of the European Commission on the transposition of several European directives related to employment relations and the development of a bipartite social dialogue between employers and employees within the industrial relations system. The directives in question concern the following:

• harmonisation of the laws of the Member States relating to collective redundancies (1998/59/?C);

• harmonisation of the laws of the Member States relating to the safeguarding of employees’ rights in the event of transfers of undertakings, businesses, or parts of undertakings or businesses (2001/23/EC);

• an employer’s obligation to inform employees of the conditions applicable to the contract or employment relationship (1991/533/EEC);

• the framework agreement on part-time work concluded by the Union of Industrial and Employers’ Confederations of Europe (UNICE), the European Centre of Enterprises with Public Participation and of Enterprises of General Economic Interest (CEEP) and the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) (1997/81/EC);

• the framework agreement on [fixed-term work](/search/node/areas OR industrialrelations OR dictionary OR definitions OR fixedtermwork?oldIndex) concluded by ETUC, UNICE and CEEP (1999/70/EC);

• the protection of young people at work (1994/33/EC);

• certain aspects of the organisation of working time (2003/88/EC);

• establishing a general framework for informing and consulting employees in the European Community (2002/14/EC).

Basis of amendment on information and consultation

A number of relevant EU directives form the basis of the draft bill on information and consultation of employees in transnational undertakings, groups of undertakings and companies, submitted by the Bulgarian Council of Ministers. These include:

• the establishment of a European Works Councils or a procedure in community-scale undertakings and community-scale groups of undertakings for the purposes of informing and consulting employees (1994/45/EC);

• supplementing the Statute for a European company with regard to the involvement of employees (2001/86/EC);

• supplementing the Statute for a European Cooperative Society with regard to the involvement of employees (2003/72/EC).

Apart from the establishment of an overall system for information and consultation of employees, several legal regulations have been adopted, pertaining to the following issues:

• equality of workers with fixed-term and permanent employment contracts;

• working time, and equality of part-time and full-time workers;

• sanctions and varying penalties for employers and officials who violate the legislation;

• improving the procedures for collective labour disputes resolution in relation to providing information, among other procedures.

Employer organisations and trade unions share similar views on the bill. However, the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB) (BG0307204F) has some minor concerns regarding the adopted text. Experts of the trade union and employer organisations participated in the preparation of the draft bill.

Amending the Collective Disputes Settlement Act

In recent months, two members of parliament from the opposition party Democrats for Strong Bulgaria (DSB), Ivan Ivanov and Vassil Panitsa, submitted a second draft bill amending and supplementing the Collective Disputes Settlement Act. The draft bill was adopted by a full majority at first reading. It proposes to abolish the prohibition of strike action in the healthcare, energy and communications sectors, which is included in the existing Collective Disputes Settlement Act (Article 16, item 2). CITUB, the Confederation of Labour Podkrepa (CL Podkrepa) and ETUC had lodged a complaint to the Council of Europe against the Bulgarian state, claiming that this prohibition does not comply with Article 6 item 4 of the European Social Charter (revised).

The two nationally representative trade unions, CITUB and CL Podkrepa, have made specific proposals for further amendments to the Collective Disputes Settlement Act, simplifying the procedures related to strikes and regulating strikes at branch, regional and national level. This entitlement stems from the Bulgarian constitution (Article 50), setting forth the right of workers and employees to strike in defence of their collective economic and social interests.

However, the employer organisations are against the draft amendment to the bill. They believe that the interests of the citizens would be threatened by the possibility for strike action in these key service areas and, therefore, are demanding that the prohibition clauses should remain in force.

The second reading of the draft bill is expected to be adopted in parliament in September 2006 and will come into effect on its publication.

Chavdar Hristov, CITUB