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Estonia’s new Civil Service Act, which has been in preparation since 2001, was finally approved by parliament on 13 June 2012. It came into effect on 1 April 2013 and aims to modernise public services and make them more effective. However, under the reforms, civil servants lose some benefits and the total number of civil servants is reduced by 25%. Unions remain critical of the new legislation and employers, while quite satisfied with the changes, feel they do not go far enough.
The new Civil Service Act was approved by Estonia's parliament in June 2012, after a decade of attempts to modernise the country's public services and align them with internationally accepted principles of public service.
Under the new legislation, only those who actually work in central public administration are defined as public servants; previously, all state or local government agency employees, irrespective of duties and responsibilities, were counted as civil servants. In effect, this reduces the total number of civil servants by 25% as, according to the new law, the job of any employee in public service who does not enforce public authority is now regulated by the Employment Contracts Act.
Under the new legislation, these employees have the right to strike, whereas civil servants do not. Trade unions have fought for the right to strike in the public sector for about 10 years, claiming that a ban on striking is not reasonable because, without the right to strike, civil servants do not have the means to resolve conflicts relating to salary or working conditions (EE0412103F).
Another aim of the new act was to bring the working conditions of civil servants into line with the private sector. Civil servants will therefore no longer be entitled to
However, civil servants will still be entitled to a greater annual holiday allowance of 35 days, compared with 28 days for private sector employees.
To ensure the salary system is transparent and understandable, all salaries and guidelines for determining salary levels will be made public and updated annually.
Under the Employment Contracts Act, employees are able to negotiate working conditions, but employees who are classed as civil servants are not. By increasing the number of employees who work in the public sector under an employment contract, there will be more scope for employees to negotiate over working conditions with employers. This should result (if employees' negotiations are successful) in improved working conditions for everyone in the public sector since, in practice, most public institutions will not want to manage different working conditions for different groups of employees.
Anti-corruption laws have been reformed simultaneously with the changes to the Civil Service Act. This will give public servants more freedom to, for example, run private businesses or have second jobs.
Overall, the reforms have been received with more criticism than approval.
At draft stage, The Federation of the Trade Unions of State and Municipal Agencies Employees (ROTAL) said that the reforms would be unfair since civil servants’ benefits are to be cut and yet most will still not be entitled to strike.
Professor Tiina Randma-Liiv of Tallinn University of Technology noted that the new Act, although creating more flexibility, would be counterproductive: although it closes the gap between the public and private sectors by removing public servants’ privileges, it would make public service less attractive to potential employees.
The Estonian Employers’ Confederation (ETTK) has for years been talking of the need to restructure public services and remove the benefits civil servants have in comparison with regular employees. Even so, ETTK would have preferred the number of civil servants to have been reduced even further, to curb unnecessary employment in state and local government agencies.
Liina Osila and Greg Kööp, Praxis Center for Policy Studies