Government and trade unions clash on new Labour Code

After several rounds of unsuccessful negotiations with the government, on 18 February 2011 the representatives of Romania’s five national trade union confederations withdrew from discussions with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Labour, considering that all possibility of reaching an amicable settlement through dialogue had been exhausted. The unions said they believed that the only means left to them to defend their interests were street action and a general strike.

Reasons for disagreement

In autumn 2010, the Romanian Government (Guvernul României) put forward for public debate an initiative to amend the laws on collective industrial relations, and to bind them together in a Social Dialogue Code. The purpose was to have a single piece of legislation encompassing everything from the incorporation and organisation of trade unions and employer organisations, to collective bargaining, labour dispute resolution, and the organisation and running of the Economic and Social Council (CES) (a tripartite negotiating body representing employers, trade unions and the government).

The social partners immediately voiced their opposition to this idea (RO1012019I). Despite this, however, the government put forward a legislative proposal for the amendment of the Labour Code (Law no. 53/2003) (RO1012039I).

This new initiative was then negotiated during repeated rounds of talks with the social partners in the Social Dialogue Committee of the Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Protection. In parallel, the unions met with the Minister of Labour Ioan Botis and the Prime Minister Emil Boc, without being able to reach a consensus.

The main reason for the disagreement was the government’s intention to delete from the Labour Code the provisions regarding national and sectoral collective agreements. According to the Prime Minister, these provisions are to be regulated under a separate statute.

The endless and fruitless dispute led the representatives of the five national union confederations to leave the negotiations on 18 February 2011.

The rule is that, prior to submitting it to the Parliament of Romania (Parlamentul României), the new amendment has to be endorsed by the plenum of the CES. As the unions were absent from the CES plenary meeting of 24 February, the draft amendment did not get the required endorsement at that meeting.

Trade unions’ reactions

With the government planning to bypass parliamentary debates and enforce the amendment through a procedure permitting it to enact legislation by assuming responsibility before Parliament, the unions announced that ‘radical street actions are the only way left to us to bar [Prime Minister] Mr Boc’s cabinet from adopting an amendment to the Labour Code that seriously violates workers’ rights and liberties’.

The five national trade union confederations called a meeting on 21 February attended by 350 union leaders, and decided on the joint actions to be taken. They include:

• keeping all union members fully informed about the substance of the new regulations;

• launching an awareness campaign among politicians;

• numerous street actions; and

• a national general strike.

The unions have already held meetings with representatives of the political parties and the parliamentary groups, both at central and local level, through their county branches and union federations.

They also staged protest rallies between 26 February to 18 March, in six counties every day until the whole country had been covered.

On 8 March 2011, the government adopted the new amendment through the short-cut procedure. The opposition parties called a no confidence vote on this issue, and so the amendment was scheduled for debate on 16 March. The unions called their members to a rally in front of the Parliament building on this day. The rally took place, but with only 8,000 to 10,000 protesters instead of the expected 50,000.

In Parliament, the opposition did not mobilise the necessary number of votes to dismiss the Cabinet, and the new Labour Code is awaiting the decision of the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) in response to the appeal filed by the opposition parties.

The unions, on the other hand, made it known that they have managed to collect the requisite number of signatures to call a general strike, which is scheduled to take place on the date the new act is forwarded for promulgation.

Commentary

The major bone of contention is the absence from the new Code of collective agreements at national and sector level.

If such collective agreements are eliminated, the trade union and employer organisation representatives at national level will lose their roles as negotiators, and a large number of employees (particularly in the public sector and in small and medium sized enterprises) will no longer be protected by collective bargaining.

Constantin Ciutacu, Institute of National Economy, Romanian Academy