Croatia: New law on representativeness in Croatia

A new Law on Representation (OG 93/14) has defined the representativeness criteria for the conclusion of collective agreements in Croatia.

If only one union represents an organisation’s employees, then that union must be recognised as the representative union for collective bargaining. This is regardless of the number of union members and the share of employees in union membership.

If more than one trade union represents the employees at an organisation, then all these unions must agree which union or unions are the representative ones.

The new law stipulates that a collective agreement is valid only if it is signed by the representative trade union, or unions that represent at least 50% of the members of the representative trade union.

The agreement on the representativeness has to state the number of members of each representative trade union. If the trade unions cannot agree on the trade union representativeness, then it is decided by the Commission for determining the representativeness.