Blaziene, Inga

The concept of food vouchers for employees was first introduced to the social partners in 2005, at the sitting of the Tripartite Council of the Republic of Lithuania (Lietuvos Respublikos trišalė taryba, LRTT [1]). However, even then, the social partners resolved ‘to support the idea of social catering in essence, but to disapprove the draft law, because, according to the social partners, the envisaged model of social catering would cause negative consequences’. The main argument for their disapproval was attributed to the problem of vested interests, whereby the model of food vouchers for employees, if approved, would prove beneficial only for certain business strata. [1] http://www.lrtt.lt/

The project on Social Dialogue Capacity Building at sectoral and company levels is a follow-up of a similar project held at a national level in 2005. The methodology used included carrying out interviews with members of the nationally recognised representative organisations of employers and employees in the eligible countries – Lithuania in this case - and collecting their views of the capacity of their members' organisations. The report reflect their views for the sectoral/branch- and enterprise-level developments.

On 1 May 2007, three of the leading trade union confederations signed a declaration of cooperation to strengthen the trade union movement. The three confederations involved were the Lithuanian Trade Union Confederation (Lietuvos profesinių sąjungų konfederacija, LPSK [1]), the Lithuanian Labour Federation (Lietuvos darbo federacija, LDF [2]) and the Lithuanian Trade Union ‘Solidarumas’ (Lietuvos profesinė sąjunga ‘Solidarumas’, LPS ‘Solidarumas’ [3]). [1] http://www.lpsk.lt/ [2] http://www.ldf.lt/ [3] http://www.lps.lt/

While the Lithuanian economy is continuing to experience rapid growth, the labour force shortage has also resulted in a dramatic increase in average wages. In 2006 alone, the country’s gross average wage increased by almost 20%. Nonetheless, the wages of employees in the public sector – where collective bargaining does not exist at all, except in education and healthcare – have not been growing or have been increasing extremely slowly. Consequently, in light of the country’s labour force shortage, a growing number of employees are moving from the public sector to the private sector. Data from the Lithuanian Statistics Department (Lietuvos Statistikos Departamentas, STD [1]) indicate that employment in the public sector fell by nearly eight percentage points in the period 2000–2006, from 34% in 2000 to 26.3% in 2006. According to the STD, in 2006, the highest proportions of job vacancies were found in the areas of public administration, defence and social security. [1] http://www.stat.gov.lt/

The boundaries between dependent employment and self-employment have become increasingly blurred in some sectors in recent years, in a context of changing labour markets and the spread of practices such as outsourcing and contracting-out. This process has led to a growing interest in ‘economically dependent workers’ – workers who are formally self-employed but depend on a single employer for their income. In general, the definition of ‘economically dependent workers’ is not used in Lithuania and is really only known to a very small number of experts. So far, no general discussions have taken place on this topic in Lithuania. Moreover, no studies are available to date that could be used to estimate the number of individuals who could be considered ‘economically dependent workers’. Accordingly, this article can only refer to indirect data, expert assessments and fragmentary discussions reflecting certain aspects of the issue of economically dependent workers.

The Foundation project ‘Attractive workplace for all: A contribution to the Lisbon Strategy at company level’ aims at identifying pioneer company practices, policies and agreements and showing how the Lisbon strategy is being implemented on the ground at company level. Examples of innovative company practice were gathered from several Member States. In this report, case examples for Lithuania are organised under the following six thematic headings: fostering employability; increasing labour market participation of underemployed groups; integration into the labour market of people at risk of exclusion; make work pay, make work attractive; towards a balanced flexibility; and business creation and entrepreneurship.

Up to 2007, only one sectoral collective agreement - in agriculture - had been signed in Lithuania and registered at the Ministry of Social Security and Labour (Lietuvos Respublikos Socialinės apsaugos ir darbo ministerija, SADM [1]) according to valid legislation (*LT0608019I* [2]). However, on 19 January 2007, a second sectoral collective agreement was signed, and was registered at SADM three days later. The latest agreement has been reached between the Lithuanian Journalist Union (Lietuvos žurnalistų sąjunga, LŽS [3]) and the Association of National Regional and Urban Newspaper Publishers (Nacionalinė rajonų ir miestų laikraščių leidėjų asociacija, NRMLLA). It is the first agreement of such a nature between the representatives of journalists and publishers. [1] http://www.socmin.lt/ [2] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/collective-agreement-in-agricultural-sector [3] http://www.lzs.lt/

The Law on Trade Unions of the Republic of Lithuania (LTU) was originally adopted at the end of 1991. In 1994-1995 and 2001-2003, the law was subject to repeated amendments and modifications, but these were not significant.

As previously reported (*LT0701029I* [1], *LT0701019I* [2]), at the end of 2006, discussions on the internal reorganisation of the Lithuanian Trade Union Confederation (Lietuvos profesinių sąjungų konfederacija, LPSK [3]) took on a new lease of life. The key subject matter of these discussions was the reinforcement of the trade unions’ position, which is expected to be brought about by consolidating both the sectoral and regional trade union organisations. [1] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/union-proposes-better-distribution-of-membership-fees [2] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/major-union-confederation-discusses-possible-reorganisation [3] http://www.lpsk.lt/

The main youth law - Law on Youth Policy Framework [1] (LYPF) - adopted in 2003, internalised youth policy as one of the fields of national policy. The Law enshrines basic definitions of youth policy, principles of the implementation of the policy and fields of the implementation of youth policy. The Law defines state and municipal institutions and agencies, implementing youth policy. On November 2005, the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania (Lietuvos Respublikos Seimas, LRS [2]) adopted the Law on the Amendment of the LYPF, which better defines functional distribution of state institutions and organisations, and enshrines the Department for Youth Affairs at the Ministry of Social Security and Labour (Socialinės apsaugos ir darbo ministerija, SADM [3]) as the main institution for implementation of measures of national youth policy. [1] http://www3.lrs.lt/cgi-bin/preps2?Condition1=245497&Condition2= [2] http://www.lrs.lt/ [3] http://www.socmin.lt/