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Besides representatives of the concerned departmental ministries, representatives of employer organisations and trade unions also took part in discussions on the National Employment Action Plan for 2004-2006. In particular, the discussions involved the two biggest representatives of employers and trade unions in the Czech Republic: the Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic and the Czech-Moravian Confederation of Trade Unions.
1.1 Which organisations did the government consult on the preparation of the 2004 NAP and at what level (national, regional, local etc)?
Besides representatives of the concerned departmental ministries, representatives of employer organisations and trade unions also took part in discussions on the 'National Employment Action Plan for 2004-2006'. In particular, the discussions involved the two biggest representatives of employers and trade unions in the Czech Republic: the Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic, SP CR (Svaz průmyslu a dopravy ČR, SP ČR) and the Czech-Moravian Confederation of Trade Unions, CMKOS (Českomoravská konfederace odborových svazů, ČMKOS). Negotiations took place at national level. Preparation of the NAP drew on the experiences of creating and implementing annual employment action plans from previous years. That is why in November 2003 the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, MoLSA (Ministerstvo práce a sociálních věcí ČR, MPSV ČR) drew up a material titled 'Government Procedures and Goals for Reducing Unemployment during its Term of Office', which the government approved on January 7 this year. One of the purposes of this document was to instigate a debate on the existing approaches to employment policy, or rather on the narrow, uncoordinated concept of the policy. In the resolution it adopted on the material The Government of the Czech Republic (Vláda České republiky) instructed the labour and social affairs minister to set up an interdepartmental Commission for Managing Work on the NAP for 2004-2006 and Tackling the Issue of Unemployment. The Commission would not just work on preparing the NAP; it would also handle monitoring of the implementation of the NAP and supervision of its effectiveness and efficiency. All members of government were instructed to submit to the Commission proposals for specific measures to cut unemployment, or to increase employment. The Commission had twelve members, with each of the concerned departments (at the level of deputy ministers) providing one representative. Employer organisations and trade unions, selected at national tripartite level - the Plenum of the Council of Economic and Social Agreement of the Czech Republic, RHSD CR (Rada hospodářské a sociální dohody, RHSD ČR) - also each had one representative on the Commission. The first session was held on 8 April 2004. MoLSA presented to the Commission the agenda and first working proposal for the NAP, which had come out of proposals from members of the government. Other sessions of the Commission took place in May and June this year, and in the interim work went ahead to find common standpoints. Unlike the preparations for the previous annual employment plans, the social partners were now at the very inception of the NAP and were able to help shape it. The working version of the draft NAP was subsequently discussed in detail in the RHSD CR Working Group for Employment and later approved by a Plenary Session of the RHSD CR in June (with a conclusion recommending that the Czech government adopt the NAP, including a proposal to establish a coordinator to manage implementation of the NAP. It was also stated that the absence of economic strategy is a shortcoming; the insufficient financing of NAP measures was criticised; and increased funding of active employment policy was recommended.) Before the NAP was approved and adopted by the government, comments were demanded in external review proceedings, again involving the social partners, who made comments on the material - namely CMKOS, the Association of Independent Trade Unions, ASO (Asociace samostatných odborů, ASO), the Art and Culture Confederation, KUK (Konfederace umění a kultury, KUK), SP CR, the Confederation of Employers’ and Entrepreneurs’ Associations of the Czech Republic, KZPS CR (Konfederace zaměstnavatelských a podnikatelských svazů ČR, KZPS ČR), as well as the Economic Chamber of the Czech Republic, EC CR (Hospodářská komora ČR, HK ČR) and the Federation of the Food and Drink Industries of the Czech Republic, FFDI CR (Potravinářská komora ČR, PK ČR).
Were these organisations informed in time and did they have enough time to react?
The aforementioned social partners were consulted on the draft NAP at the appropriate times and representatives of SP CR and CMKOS actively participated in creation of the Action Plan in the Commission. According to CMKOS, the times allowed for the necessary reactions were sufficient; SP CR believes that preparation of a material of this kind would in future merit more time.
To what extent have national reform partnerships been set up in your country in response to the call made at the spring 2004 European Council (see Introduction)?
Standard tripartite mechanisms function in the Czech Republic and other institutions, committees, commissions including representatives of the social partners have also been set up, for example the Committee for Foreigners attached to the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, the Interdepartmental (meaning falling under the authority of and with the involvement of representatives of more than one ministry) Body for Suppressing the Illegal Employment of Foreigners, the said Commission for Managing Work on the NAP, etc. In this sense there are forums where it is possible to deal with tasks stemming from the Lisbon Strategy. Representatives of employers and trade unions also take part in monitoring projects financed from European Social Fund, ESF. No special body has been established to assert the Lisbon objectives and deepen cooperation in this area.
1.2 If the social partners have submitted their views, are these represented in the NAP? Please give brief details.
The social partners agreed with the majority of the proposed measures and also brought forward their own proposals, some of which were accepted and some of which fundamentally split the Commission (the biggest points of contention concerned the European Commission’s recommendation to reduce the level of non-wage costs, tackling certain problems by means of tax relief, the amount of money to be spent on active employment policy and such like). As far as the suggestions of the social partners are concerned, the NAP incorporates ideas put forward by CMKOS concerning raising the proportion of long-term unemployed persons in retraining programmes, implementing programmes targeting employment among the young, restructuring non-wage labour costs, combating illegal employment, legislation on work inspection, preparations for proposals to provide advantages offsetting the financing of employees’ transport costs, a further increase in the minimum wage designed to make work more attractive, and improving investment incentives in the worst-hit regions. CMKOS’s objections concerning the insufficient financing of active employment policy were to some extent taken into account during the discussion of the Czech Republic state budget for 2005, with spending on this budget item increased. Representatives of SP CR put forward comments and proposals regarding the issue of active and preventative measures for the unemployed and inactive, measures in the area of modernising the administration of employment services (the insufficiency of measures was highlighted), and to support lifelong learning (measures recommend to make employers and employees more financially motivated to improve their education, e.g. tax relief for employers, education costs deducted from employees’ tax base, cutting mandatory insurance payments etc.). With regard to increasing the supply of labour and supporting active ageing, SP CR proposed launching a programme that would comprise legislative measures (mainly affecting tax and social security payments) and also a promotional campaign designed to make society and employers take a more positive attitude towards employing older citizens. During the discussion of the draft Action Plan at the Plenary Session of the RHSD CR, SP CR was successful in its drive to tone down the formulations of certain tasks imposed on the social partners (e.g. enshrining the principles of lifelong learning in collective agreements, drawing up social programmes for older employees designed to raise their professional qualifications and applying flexible working hours schemes under the existing labour legislation); these objectives are no longer compulsory but are merely to be striven for. According to SP CR, the impact of the social partners’ involvement cuts through all the chapters of the NAP, in line with their capabilities to contribute to implementing individual measures.
1.3 Does the NAP include a chapter/part written by social partners? Is the NAP a joint text? Did the social partners sign the NAP?
The NAP does not contain a separate chapter drawn up by the social partners. It is a joint text, based on the achieved consensus. The six sections of the NAP do, however, contain passages directly formulated by the social partners, which are a reflection of the role they play in implementing measures through the mechanism of collective bargaining. The NAP was not signed by the social partners - it went through standard review proceedings and was ultimately adopted and approved by the Czech government.
1.4 What was the degree of consultation of the social partners? Was the consultation important in substance or were social partners asked to say just yes or no?
There was a relatively broad base for discussing the documents in question with the social partners and the negotiations were important by their very nature. The social partners brought forward their own expert analyses (e.g. on the level of non-wage costs) and took responsibility for carrying out certain tasks. Some of the social partners’ ideas were worked into the subsequent wording of the document (according to MoLSA, the degree to which they were incorporated depended on the overall political context, current political and economic priorities and, chiefly, the resources available in the state budget).
1.5 Overall, what is the assessment of the social partners of the current process of drawing up NAPs in your country?
For example, CMKOS welcomed the submitted material as an important part of the process of formulating employment policy and as a document that concretises the link between state employment policy and the European employment strategy. It also agrees with the structure of the NAP, based on EU employment directives. On the other hand, CMKOS draws critical attention to the fact that the potential of this approach is not made full use of, that there is not sufficient coordination between the concerned ministries, that there is insufficient funding for employment policy and, most importantly, that no overall economic strategy has been formulated. As a result, CMKOS believes, the situation on the labour market in the Czech Republic is not improving drastically and not even the Lisbon objectives are being achieved - employment plans are then little more than formal documents. The NAP also includes a number of presumed measures, whose final substance and impact was not clear at the time when the document was adopted and which, according to CMKOS, will in some cases become the subject of very controversial debate, such as the creation of a new labour code. CMKOS believes that the biggest weakness of the applied procedure for preparing and approving the NAP is that implementation of the proposed measures is too dependent on political and economic priorities of the ruling political powers of the time. SP CR also believes that the process of compiling the NAP would in future require closer cooperation between government departments and a systemic approach to creating the Action Plan. However, despite these reservations, the social partners expressed their fundamental agreement with the document when discussing it at the aforementioned Plenary Session of the RHSD CR on June 24 of this year. As far as MoLSA is concerned, the adoption of the government resolution to set up the Commission has led to a qualitative improvement in cooperation and the possibility for the social partners to make their views right from the start of preparation of the NAP.
2.1 Please give a brief description of any significant tripartite arrangements in your country for implementing some or all of the current EU employment guidelines (if there are none, please provide some explanation).
Tripartite mechanisms in the Czech Republic have been formed during the last 15 years. The RHSD CR, set up as a voluntary tripartite institution in October 1990, is a joint body at national level. Its goal is to develop social dialogue, with particular regard for achieving social harmony, which is viewed as an essential condition of the working of market economy and attaining a high standard of living for citizens. Tripartite negotiations concentrate on the long-term concept of economic and social development, measures designed to improve competitiveness, labour relations and collective bargaining, trends in employment and the situation on the job market, the development of wages and consumer prices, healthcare issues, occupational safety, the environment, developments in education and culture, conceptual matters of national tripartite consultations etc. The most important component of the tripartite mechanism is negotiations at the Plenum of tripartite sessions of the RHSD CR with the participation of members of the Czech government, which are preceded by sessions in RHSD CR working groups according to their focus (in the case at hand most notably the working group for employment and the working group for economic policy). Plenary sessions of the RHSD CR are attended by representatives of government, of the trade unions and of business organisations. The chairman of the RHSD CR is a deputy prime minister. For the trade unions, sessions are attended by representatives of CMKOS and ASO; employers are represented by SP CR and KZPS CR. In recent years regional tripartite platforms have also been set up in the Ústí nad Labem, Pardubice, South Moravia, Olomouc, Moravia-Silesia and Zlín regions. These bodies’ agendas concentrate on regional problems of socio-economic development and in this context the social partners take part in designing and monitoring special revitalisation programmes in high-risk regions and in certain sectors of the economy. Representatives of both the trade unions and employers also feature in advisory bodies of the labour offices and in certain other monitoring structures.
2.2 Please outline (with examples) how the social partners at various levels have contributed - ie through collective bargaining, consultations, joint or unilateral actions etc - to the implementation of:
the current employment guidelines, and especially those entitled Address change and promote adaptability and mobility in the labour market, Promote development of human capital and lifelong learning, Increase labour supply and promote active ageing and Gender equality; and
the specific employment recommendations to your country (known as priorities in the case of the new Member States) made by the Council in June 2004 (see attached document recs 2004.pdf, under the Country specific recommendations starting on page 6, and Priorities for new Member States beginning on p.26).
Last year, around 35% of employees were covered by collective agreements. Regarding employment, collective agreements usually contain a specification of overtime work and the scope by which the limits laid down by the labour regulations may be exceeded, use of the option to introduce various schemes for arranging working hours in order to improve work flexibility, a duty for employers to offer vacancies preferentially to their own dismissed workers, a duty for employers to provide employees with retraining, provisions binding employers to give precedence to retraining courses over dismissals, provisions supporting the improvement of employees’ housing conditions (loans), measures designed to protect at-risk categories of workers (higher age categories, mothers with children, the disabled etc.). As far as the Council of Europe’s specific employment recommendations for the Czech Republic are concerned, the social partners have different views. For example, CMKOS agrees with the need to preserve a reasonable link between wages and productivity, but it rejects wage dumping policy and takes issue with opinions that excessively high non-wage costs and generally excessive labour costs are a significant factor causing low job creation. It agrees that it is necessary to eliminate abuse of the benefits systems, but not that they should be reduced across-the-board. It believes that part-time work is not used much in the Czech Republic because it brings low wages. CMKOS advocates a higher standard of and improved funding for active employment policy and supports the fight against all forms of discrimination. As far as the implementation of or cooperation in implementation of NAP measures are concerned, the social partners adopted the following stances: MoLSA will continue to use the RHSD CR to negotiate with the social partners and other departments in looking for sources of financing to increase the funding of active employment policy, e.g. restructuring non-wage labour costs. In collaboration with the social partners and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, MSMT (Ministerstvo školství, mládeže a tělovýchovv, MŠMT), MoLSA will prepare a proposal for systems for recognising work experience applicable in selected sectors, which proposal will have no effect on attainment of standards of education. In collective bargaining at all levels, the social partners will strive to make use of the options the 'labour code' provides for flexible working hours schemes in order to maintain employment, to make companies more competitive and to make employees better able to find work. The appropriate working teams of the RHSD CR will prepare proposals for the RHSD CR plenum on improving geographical mobility by means of subsidising employees’ commuting costs. If approved, the plenum of the RHSD CR will recommend them to the government. In the RHSD CR MoLSA will continue to consult with the social partners and other departments on the restructuring of non-wage labour costs (or other options) in order to acquire the means to increase the funding for lifelong learning, in particular extra professional training. In collective bargaining at all levels, the social partners will strive to incorporate into collective agreements conditions for applying the principles of lifelong learning, with the objective of maintaining employment and making employees and companies more competitive on the job market. The appropriate RHSD CR working teams will prepare for the RHSD CR plenum proposals for improving employers’ motivation to support further expert and professional training for their employees and for improving employees’ motivation to pursue further education. They will then recommend them to the government. MoLSA will submit to the government a proposal for changes to the pension system, depending on the outcome of negotiations between all parliamentary parties and the social partners and their consensus on the nature of pension reform. In collaboration with other departments and the social partners during work on the 'National Programme for Preparing for Ageing for 2003-2007', MoLSA will also prepare a 'Programme for Ageing Employees', which will comprise legislative changes and a promotional campaign designed to persuade the public and employers to keep on older employees. During collective bargaining, the social partners will strive to draw up corporate social programmes for older employees, focusing on ensuring that older persons gain extra professional skills and abilities. In implementing employment policy, MoLSA will coordinate individual departments and the social partners in supporting greater participation in the job market by women, in order to cut substantially the differences in rates of employment and remuneration for men and women.
2.3 What is the social partners’ assessment of the employment policy of the government?
CMKOS views employment policy as one of the key components of the state’s overall socio-economic policy - that is why it initiated various tripartite negotiations on this topic, at which it put forward its suggestions for how better to coordinate government departments when formulating employment policy, accenting the role of active employment policy and improving its funding, strengthening the services sector in general and public services in particular as fields that could absorb dismissed workers, and fundamentally escalating the fight against illegal employment and stepping up the role of the regions in tackling unemployment. A new 'employment act no. 435/2004 Coll'. took effect at the start of October this year. CMKOS regards its enactment as a positive shift in making the legislation more effective in tackling the situation on the Czech labour market. CMKOS does not reject the possibility of using untraditional employment schemes in the Czech Republic, but it does insist on preserving adequate labour protection for employees. SP CR’s reservations mainly affect the means of funding employment policy - still not enough money is set aside to fund its active forms, even though there is sufficient legislation for them. Conversely, too much attention is paid to passive policy; the prolonging of the period during which unemployment benefit can be claimed by older people without any attempt to improve their employability is proof of the imbalance in favour of passive policy, according to SP CR. The trade unions usually rate the government’s policy as over-restrictive towards employees; they insist on preserving the existing standard of protection for employees, pointing out that employers do not provide sufficient protection for employees or in some cases abuse the presence of trade unions in a number of companies. By contrast, employer representatives find that government policy is out of line with the needs of the present-day labour market and is over-protective towards trade union rights; greater job-market flexibility is also demanded.
2.4 Are there any gaps or any insufficiencies identified by the social partners in the NAP?
The social partners appraised the NAP from their own points of view; they often concurred in pinpointing problems, but differed in the ways to solve them. That led to differences of opinion both between the representatives of trade unions and employers and between representatives of government departments and the social partners. The social partners put forward most comments at the RHSD CR session in question (CMKOS, for example, proposed establishing a coordinator for managing implementation of the NAP, drew attention to the absence of economic strategy and the lack of funding for the NAP and recommended increasing the funding of active employment policy).
3. Have the social partners been informed or consulted over, or involved in the implementation in your country of, the EU’s broad economic policy guidelines (BEPGs) for 2004? (the BEPGs document is attached).
The broad guidelines of economic policy are part of certain materials concerning economic and social policy and debated in tripartite forums. The social partners were informed about BEPGs, but have not yet been involved in either preparation or implementation (e.g. they were acquainted with 'the Convergence Programme' during the review process).
4. Please add here any other comments on the procedures, contents and implementation of the NAP.
One adverse factor in the preparation of measures from the point of view of MoLSA, which was ultimately responsible for drawing up the NAP, was the condition of maintaining equilibrium in public finances. Another negative finding was the difficulty in coordinating the working group, whose debate lacked a timely, flexible decision-making moment. Another important element is the need for a higher body encompassing all the problems being tackled, which overlap various departments (this function could currently be performed by the deputy prime minister for the economy). Preparing documents like the NAP (in the view of both MoLSA and the social partners) is most hindered by the absence of a concept of the Czech Republic’s economic development, which makes it difficult to develop ideas into medium-term or long-term implementation plans or programmes. For there to be sufficient funding to implement the NAP, it will be necessary in future to perform an analysis of tax and benefits systems and the purposes selected finances are spent on. In this regard, according to MoLSA, savings and resources could be found to reduce the burden on employers having to pay insurance payments into the state, as well as room to motivate them to create jobs and invest in developing employees’ qualifications. (Jaroslav Hála and Aleš Kroupa)