The Legal And Institutional Framing Of Collective Bargaining In Cee Countries

The formerly communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have witnessed a profound transformation of their labour laws since the 1990s and, especially, after their accession to the European Union. Today, in comparison to the other Member States, they continue to have weak trade unions and employers’ associations and an underdeveloped system of collective bargaining. Moreover, the recent economic and financial crisis highlighted the need to invest further efforts in bringing the CEE industrial relations closer to the ‘old’ Member States, in order to facilitate a more meaningful enforcement of the EU-wide economic and social policies. This is the first book to scrutinise this important matter in depth. Focusing on four current CEE labour law regimes – in Slovenia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Poland – that also have different collective bargaining trends and can be said to exemplify some of the main legal and institutional frameworks for collective bargaining that the CEE countries have developed, the author addresses the following major issues: – the transition from a centralised to an open market economy and the degree of continuing residual characteristics; – the extent to which labour laws since the 1990s have enabled an adequate institutionalisation of industrial relations to allow free and voluntary collective bargaining at the national, sectoral, and company levels; and – the effectiveness of the standard-setting role of trade unions and employers’ associations insofar as they have persisted or come into play. The analysis always keeps in focus the development of labour laws in relation to a number of such interlinked elements as market transformation, type of privatisation of state ownership, and attitudes towards welfare. It draws on both the relevant literature and on twenty-five interviews with legal and policy experts from social partners’ organisations and staff within the ministries for social affairs in the selected countries. In support of the study’s general finding that the laws in CEE countries could provide more stimulus for sectoral and cross-sectoral collective bargaining, the author offers deeply informed recommendations and insights into legal shortcomings and pinpoints how the existing legal frameworks can be enhanced. Any professional or academic in the field of industrial relations, and particularly those concerned with complex transitions such as those occurring in the CEE countries and elsewhere in the world, will find this book of great value.

Market volatility and uncertainty have put welfare and social security policies back centre stage and point up the need for closer links with employment policy. The inability of existing income support systems to respond to the increasing fragmentation of people's working careers, the needs of people in difficulty, and the spread of various forms of poverty calls for well-coordinated and efficient responses. This volume highlights the best practices in the various regions of the world in the contexts of international and EU labour law, industrial relations, and social security. Authoritative reports by leading scholars of labour law and social security – originally presented at the twenty-second World Congress of the International Society for Labour and Social Security Law (ISLSSL) held in Turin in September 2018 – cover the following research themes in depth: – informal workers; – migrant workers; – global trade and labour; – organization, productivity, and well-being at work; – transnational collective agreements; – new forms of social security; and – the role of the State and industrial relations. In its insistence that, despite the radical changes in the world of work and business brought about by globalization and digital technologies, the decisions of institutions and public and private actors can lead to a more coherent system of international economic and social governance, this timely volume shows the way forward. Practitioners, policymakers, and scholars in the relevant fields will bene_ t immeasurably from its expert analyses and recommendations.

The state subsidies and philanthropy that traditionally allowed orchestras to flourish have greatly diminished in the wake of recent financial crises and the COVID-19 pandemic. As in other fields affected by the precarious labor arrangements prevalent in the world of work today, it is the employees and freelancers—in this case, the musicians themselves—who suffer most. In this deeply knowledgeable and provocative book, a highly acclaimed scholar who combines the roles of law professor, music journalist, and orchestral violinist presents the first major legal study to focus on labor relations and the institutional dynamics at play within orchestras. Drawing on personal interviews with more than 250 orchestral musicians and other stakeholders—whose testimonies and actions often stand in contradiction to narratives provided by cultural economists and government cultural policymakers—the author uncovers the deteriorating welfare of musicians in two countries, the United States and the Netherlands, in which she has considerable practical orchestral experience. The methodology will reverberate with great intensity to musicians worldwide with its novel system of “movements” that focus on different vulnerabilities besetting orchestral players to highlight such issues and topics as: orchestra financing, with a special focus on the nonprofit sector and the changing nature of state subsidies in Europe; the impact of the perception of orchestras as “elitist” and of limited social value; discriminatory practices in auditions and hiring; legal and practical relevance of contemporary questions of employee categorization (regularly employed; self-employed; false self-employed); and how fair practice codes and collective bargaining agreements can be designed, implemented, and enforced. An interdisciplinary approach to a multiplicity of vulnerabilities in the sector, the study incorporates economic, historical and legal research along with a consideration of sociological factors. Case studies—from the EU Court of Justice, the Dutch Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of the United States, and the U.S. National Labor Relations Board—offer practical insight into specific legal issues, including the fundamental question of how musician employees are differentiated from freelancers. Reflecting on the cutbacks and compromises that traumatize orchestral negotiations in today’s musical world, the book not only provides orchestral musicians with a wealth of useful information and suggestions for future action but also adds to the growing body of legal literature on the self-limitations of labor law and the increasing vulnerability of workers. Practitioners in labor and employment law as well as academics in the field will benefit from a powerful analysis of workers’ vulnerabilities in today’s labor market.

In-work poverty is a reality for too many persons in the European Union (EU). Although everyone is in agreement that poverty must be reduced, rarely is there a specific focus on the plight of those who, despite working, are poor. This important book is the first to unreservedly meet the challenge of defining, measuring, and comparing the legal regimes to combat in-work poverty in Europe, fully attending to the strengths and shortcomings of indicators and allowing the assessment of comparative best practices among the Member States. The distinguished contributors each describe and analyse this complex and multidimensional phenomenon, with its manifold and intertwined causes, in relation to such factors as the following: employment-related factors (wage, type of contract, atypical employment); worker’s socio-demographic characteristics (level of education, gender, age, country of birth); size and composition of household; household work intensity; and institutional factors (childcare, flexible work arrangements, employment protection, housing, technological change). In a major innovation, the book’s methodology approaches the ‘working poor’ by distinctly defining four groups of vulnerable and under-represented persons (VUPs) with detailed statistical information on in-work poverty in each group. Following an in-depth introduction focusing on the definition and ramifications of the concept of in-work poverty – including a discussion of legal scholarship and relevant EU instruments – the situations in seven EU Member States (Belgium, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden) are compared, revealing important variations. For each of the VUP groups, these chapters explain their composition at the national level and assess the impact of regulation on the incidence of in-work poverty. The last chapter highlights differences and similarities in an attempt to find patterns and identify common regulatory problems and best practices. The book’s comparative perspective greatly assists in understanding in-work poverty determinants, appraising varieties of relevant national policies, and stimulating the development of effective legal measures. With its close analysis of the limitations of existing measurement indicators, the book sheds light on the role of regulation in the prevalence and persistence of the phenomenon and equips policymakers at the EU and national levels with targeted tools to tackle this severe social problem.

Although proven effective in protecting pregnancy, giving birth and breastfeeding – that is, the biological differences of women related to maternity – the current European Union (EU) legislative framework on maternity leave tends to overlook the roles of both parents, especially during the post-delivery period of ‘bonding’ with the child. This framework, along with EU law on parental leave, which does not encourage an equal take-up of the leave, gives rise to serious issues of gender equality affecting both men and women. This deeply researched and urgent book proposes alternative options for future EU law on child-related leave which can be applied to both employees and self-employed workers to mitigate these limitations and side effects. Analysing the various EU Directives which, directly or indirectly, relate to maternity leave, paternity leave, adoption leave and parental leave, as well as the corresponding case law of the Court of Justice of the EU, the author uses a social risk approach and tackles the following issues: narrow focus of the legislation on the delivering mother’s incapacity to work; in practice, excessive emphasis on the protection of the delivering mother; silent assent to the unequal distribution of caring responsibilities within the family; lack of attention to women’s labour market outcomes; and the new direction followed by the recently adopted Directive on work-life balance. The research focuses on working parents (including non-delivering parents in same-sex couples or adoption) and includes a comparative analysis of the law of six countries – Belgium, Ireland, Spain, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Portugal – chosen to illustrate the variety of national schemes available and how their desirable features can be introduced into EU law. A more balanced design of child-related leave is a must in today’s society for reasons of fairness and also for economic considerations. This complete analysis of EU legislation and case law about child-related leave – including the first-ever systematic and in-depth analysis on whether maternity leave can be considered discriminatory against fathers and a review of economic literature on how child-related leave affects the situation of women in the labour market – offers forward-looking solutions for child-related leave to enhance gender equality. Practitioners and nongovernmental organisations dealing with EU and national matters related to labour and employment law, social security law and gender equality law will welcome this important book, as will academics and policymakers interested in maternity and other child-related leaves.

In recent years, the tendency of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to treat human rights as indivisible and consider cases relevant to employment has contributed significantly to jurisprudence relating to human rights at work in the Council of Europe. This indispensable book is the first to thoroughly survey and analyse recent ECtHR’s cases relevant to employment law. It is based on a deeply informed structural analysis of more than fifty cases considered by the ECtHR during 2017–2021, many of which have not heretofore been considered in the legal literature. The authors examine, in particular, the following topics raised in the jurisprudence of the ECtHR: privacy and surveillance; freedom of thought, conscience and religion; freedom of expression; discrimination; unfair dismissal; forced labour; collective bargaining; and the right to strike. The authors explore the reasoning that led the ECtHR to broaden the scope of Article 8 ECHR, which protects the right to private life, in order to develop new employment rights. They also detail the impact of International Labour Organization (ILO) standards on the Court’s jurisprudence. As a clear and eminently useable guide to the applicability of ECHR for protection of labour rights and human rights at work, this book is of practical value to labour lawyers in spelling out the legal positions of the ECtHR which might support individual and collective labour rights protection in national proceedings. Academics in the field will appreciate the authors’ clarification of the trends of the ECtHR’s reasoning, especially in respect of the right to workplace privacy.

Platform work – the matching of the supply of and demand for paid labour through an online platform – often depends on workers who operate in a “grey area” between the archetype of an employee and a self-employed worker. This important book explores the utility of the International Labour Organization’s existing standards in governing this phenomenon. It indicates that despite their relevance, many standards have little or no impact. The standards apply to the issue but they fail to connect with it. The author shows how three ILO conventions – the Home Work Convention, 1996 (No. 177), the Private Employment Agencies Convention, 1997 (No. 181), and the Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189) – can be revitalised to have an impact on the platform work debate. In the course of the analysis he responds in depth to such questions as the following: What are digital labour platforms? What does decent work mean? Did the ILO centenary fundamentally change anything? What is the link between private employment services and platform work? How do crowdworkers relate to homeworkers and teleworkers? Are platform workers engaged in domestic work? What form could a future ILO standard on platform work take? Given that the ILO plans to start discussions on a potential future standard for platform work in 2022, this book will prove very useful in highlighting the issues and standards that such discussions should consider. Research has shown that the techniques and tools of the platform economy have spread far beyond gig work, resulting in widespread “gigification” and restructuring of workplace behaviours and relationships, jobs, and communities across the world. For this and other reasons, including the book’s detailed analysis of issues not addressed elsewhere, labour lawyers, in-house counsel, researchers, and policymakers will gain valuable insight into what decent work in the platform economy would require, thus greatly broadening the discussion on this difficult-to-regulate phenomenon.

In the United States and worldwide, the “labor question” has recrudesced. Old issues have resurged, sometimes in altered guise. New issues have emerged. Both test the twentieth century's solutions. This work explores the arc of labor law in the United States up to the changes that have reordered business and employment at the century's turn – the resurgence of old issues in new dress and the emergence of new issues, of which the deployment of technologies – roboticization and computerization – has been the catalyst. It closes on the issues labor law is facing in the twenty-¬first century, including the imponderable of yet a new need to address the de¬finition of citizenship. The author's thorough coverage of the relevant terrain draws on social and legal history, and also on the current wealth of economic studies across the range of such pressing issues as the following: – wages; – precarity of work; – employee representation; – health and safety; – job discrimination; – employee mobility; – privacy; – job displacement; – anti-retaliation; – wrongful dismissal; – accelerating use of automation, robotization, and computerization; – segmentation and polarization of the labor market; – ¬ ssurization of jobs; – labor segmentation and polarization; – union implosion; and – privatization of law. At a critical moment when the various strands of all these issues are becoming intertwined, this hugely informative book elucidates how labor law stands today in the United States, and by extension in many other countries. This book provides a necessary background for comparative engagement with economic change. Because the developments it deals with are global, this is critical reading for policy makers, academics, students, and an enlightened public to put what is happening in larger historical context as seen from the paradigm neoliberal economy and its legal institutions.