Trade unions abandoned tripartite talks

Growing discontent over government plans to tackle the Czech debt crisis and stabilise the economy ended with trade unions walking out on March’s tripartite extraordinary session of the social partners after just two hours. The long-term disagreement over proposed reforms led to the cancelling of a further meeting in April. Unions and other social partners are urging the government to rethink its hard-line austerity policy, which they feel is inhibiting economic growth.

Background

Relations between the current government led by Prime Minister Petr Nečas of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) and social partners have been gradually deteriorating over the past few months.

During the previous government led by Jan Fischer, who was in charge from April 2009 to June 2010, there was a relatively good dialogue with the social partners. Mr Fischer had been asked by President Václav Klaus to form a government after Mirek Topolánek’s coalition between the ODS, Christian and Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People's Party (KDU-ČSL) and the Greens (SZ) lost a confidence vote in the Chamber of Deputies in March 2009.

The joint efforts of Fischer’s government and social partners resulted in a document, Ways out of the crisis – 38 common measures of the government, trade unions and employers (CZ1002039I), in which government, employers and unions agreed on a set of measures to bring the Czech economy out of crisis and stabilise the public budget.

New government rejects document

The ODS government of Petr Nečas did not accept the whole of this document. At the 87th Plenary Session of the Council of Economic and Social Agreement of the Czech Republic (RHSD), the tripartite forum at the national level, held on 10 December 2010, the Prime Minister commented on the document, saying:

The government is going to continue working with the proposed measures. However, the document must be considered open to change, and it cannot be regarded as dogma. It needs to be viewed in the context of the government’s policy statement.

Social partners were unhappy with his comments. Both employers and trade unions said they did not regard the document as open for any changes, and they said they would insist on debating some of the proposed measures.

The Prime Minister said his government was committed to its policy statement to reform the public budget with the aim of halting growing public debt. The government began to prepare its own version of the reforms and measures to tackle the crisis, including new rules on pensions, healthcare and education, and an increase in value-added tax (VAT). This was presented to social partners both in the course of the standard legislative process and at RHSD meetings.

However, neither employers nor trade unions agreed with the proposed measures. Their criticism was that the government was not introducing reforms, but merely austerity measures that could be dangerous for consumption and investment and might inhibit economic growth. Social partners also complained that the government had not shown enough respect for their suggestions, and that it had made debate pointless by presenting proposals at tripartite meetings that had already been implemented.

Trade unions abandon tripartite session

Long-term disagreements between the government and social partners have led to a number of protests from both unions and employers (CZ1205019I, CZ1109019I, CZ1103019I), and these came to a head at the tripartite session held on 23 March 2012. Two organisations representing employees attended, namely the Czech-Moravian Confederation of Trade Unions (ČMKOS) and the Association of Independent Unions (ASO ČR). Both abandoned the session after just two hours.

Discussion had been taking place on the document presented by Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek, a member of the conservative TOP09 party. The document proposed a set of measures to deal with the current economic situation that particularly angered the trade unions.

The discussion was cut short by ČMKOS Chair Jaroslav Zavadil, who proposed an interruption of the talks until the government tabled measures in line with trade unions’ proposals.

The Chair of the Trade Union of Transport (OSD), Luboš Pomajbík, clarified the unions’ position by saying that the issue was not just about the document presented at the meeting, but also an appeal to the government to stop the reforms and continue discussions.

The Chair of ASO ČR, Bohumír Dufek, was even more forthright, saying: ‘The government is harming the country very much…the unions should paralyse the country to make the government fall.’

Finance Minister Kalousek countered by saying: ‘The unions that seek the government’s fall and the calling of early elections have purely political demands, not union or social ones.’

Employers appeal for unions to get back round the table

Neither of the employers’ representatives present agreed with all government proposals. Jaroslav Hanák, President of the organisation that represents transport employers, the Transport Union (SD), said:

We want to debate on a proposal of the whole government, not of the Finance Minister only. At the same time, our key interest is to achieve a balanced budget and to increase competitiveness of our country. For these purposes, the government must take initiatives to stimulate economic growth, and not only implement budgetary cuts. In order to reach agreement on the growth-stimulating initiatives, social consensus is needed, not trade unionists taking to the streets.

While opposing the proposals presented at the meeting, the employer organisations did not consider the abandoning of the talks reasonable and they appealed to trade unions to come back to the tripartite discussions.

Commentary

Trade unions planned to stay away from the tripartite meetings, saying the government had not fulfilled its demands. However, Prime Minister Nečas and Finance Minister Kalousek consider the reform and austerity efforts necessary and the government has pledged to continue with them.

The regular meeting of the tripartite organisation scheduled for 19 April 2012 had to be cancelled by the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, Jaromír Drábek, because trade unions refused to take part.

Soňa Veverková, Research Institute for Labour and Social Affairs