Collective Labor Agreement - How Does It Protect My Employment Rights?

Collective Labor Agreement - How Does It Protect My Employment Rights?

 

I sign a contract of employment with my employer and he tells me that the clauses are in line with the collective agreement. It is good to know what this collective agreement is and how much I am concerned about.

 

What is a collective agreement?

Collective bargaining is a way to improve working conditions. It may be for the respective enterprise, industry, industry or municipality.

 

On the one hand, the collective agreement is a contract, a deal, a deal. This means that it arises with reaching agreement and making signatures. On the other hand, the collective agreement has a normative character. This means that, like the norm in the law, it regulates the rights and obligations of an undefined circle of employees in the given enterprise, industry, industry, municipality, and employers. The circle is indefinite because some are leaving, others are just starting to work, others are going to start working in the future. For all of them, the collective agreement will work as long as they are workers.

 

Important! When I conclude an individual employment contract with my employer, there are no rights or obligations that contradict or are less favorable than those provided for in the collective agreement.

 

The collective agreement governs issues relating to the employment and the provision of workers to an enterprise. The law has two requirements regarding the content of the collective agreement:

 

not to regulate matters for which the employer or the employee can not deviate from what is prescribed by law (the so-called mandatory rules that are mandatory and the deviation from them is a violation of the law). For example, an employer can not deprive me of my paid annual leave, and I can not give it up. Therefore, it can not be stipulated in the collective agreement that workers will not benefit from their annual paid leave, but it may be necessary to arrange for any of the unpaid leave to be paid or to provide for additional leave.

not to regulate the rights and obligations of workers below the statutory minimum. For example, if the law stipulates that the employer must pay 60% of my insurance, the collective agreement may arrange for the employer to pay it in full or 80% of it, but not 50 or 40% of it.

How and who enters into a collective agreement?

Before a collective agreement is concluded, the so-called ' collective bargaining.

 

Trade unions are workers 'and employees' associations in one enterprise, one branch or industry or the territory of the respective municipality. Trade unions themselves adopt statutes and self-organize, they are independent of the employer. The statutes usually regulate the way in which workers' representatives are broadcast to the trade union concerned. It is these representatives who negotiate when concluding a collective agreement.

 

The negotiation initiative is undertaken by the trade union organization of workers who applies to the employer or the representative organization of the employers for the respective sector, branch or municipality. And the employer or the representative organization of the employers is obliged to negotiate.

 

If the contract is at the level of an undertaking or a branch of an undertaking, the two negotiating parties are respectively the employer and the trade union organization of the workers in that undertaking or branch of enterprise.

 

If it is sector or branch level, negotiations are conducted by representative organizations of workers in this branch or industry and representative employers' organizations.

 

If it is at the municipality level, it is negotiated for activities that are financed by the municipal budget. They negotiate representative trade union organizations of workers and representative employers' organizations.

 

Once agreement has been reached on all matters, the contract is signed and enters into force. It should also be entered in a special register of collective agreements with the Regional Labor Inspectorate. Only one collective agreement may be concluded at branch, branch or enterprise level. Whether such a contract has already been concluded is established by reference to the register.

 

The contract may be valid for a maximum of 2 years, and if no time limit is provided, it is considered to be valid for 1 year. 3 months before expiration, the parties must renegotiate a new collective agreement.

 

How can I protect myself from non-compliance with a collective agreement or an ineffective collective agreement?

In the first case, I can file a claim for failure to comply with a collective agreement against my employer. In the application, I must indicate the specific infringement by providing evidence. I can ask the court to oblige the Labor Inspectorate to file a copy of the collective agreement in court because I do not have it.

 

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