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CONSIDERATIONS ON THE EXERCISE OF COLLECTIVE RIGHTS OF WORKERS IN THE ROMANIAN LEGAL SYSTEM

P. R. Stefan

Abstract

In the Romanian legal system, labor law, as a branch of law, consists of the individual right of labor law, which refers to the individual labor relations of the employees with their employers and the collective labor law, which refers to the collective working relations, respectively the legal regime of trade unions, patronage, collective bargaining and strike. The main laws governing the two sides of labor law are Law no. 53/2003 (Labor Code) and Law no. 62/2011 (Law on Social Dialogue). Year 2011 was very important for Labor law because of the important changes in the field of collective rights of workers. In the matter of trade unions, a higher threshold was set up to achieve representativeness at unit level, respectively 50% plus one of the total number of employees. Until 2011, the legal minimum threshold at unit level was 1/3 of the number of employees, which led to the existence of 3 representative unions at the unit level. Other important changes concern collective bargaining and the conclusion of collective bargaining agreements. The main change is to repeal the legal provisions that permited collective bargaining at national level, and implicitly the conclusion of the collective labor agreement at the national level. It should be noted that collective bargaining in Romania is compulsory at unit level for units employing at least 21 employees. Obviously, just the collective bargaining is mandatory, and not the conclusion of the collective labor agreement. Taking into account the fact that the collective bargaining is hindered by the new legal provisions, the legislator regulated in the Law no. 62/2011 (the law of Social Dialogue) the possibility of concluding conventions, agreements and understandings by unrepresentative trade unions, which apply exclusively to the contracting parties and which, in the absence of specific regulations on their content, may contain the same provisions as well as collective labor agreements. This provision is very important and tries to fill the negative aspects of collective bargaining and the conclusion of collective bargaining agreements. The strike is another institution that has been heavily affected by the legislative changes in 2011. Thus, it is important to note, among other things, that the strike can not be triggered until the collective bargaining agreement has been negotiated, which significantly reduced the possibility of striking. Also, can be noted the fact that the strike can only be triggered by the representative union. In this context, where the relevant legislation is relatively unfavorable, the issue of the exercise of collective rights of workers in labor relations is raised. In the present study, starting from the legal regulation presented, we will analyze in concrete terms how collective rights can be exercised by the workers, and there will also be formulated de lege ferenda proposals to help improve regulation in this particularly important matter for work relations, respectively collective rights of workers.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgemsocial2019V/1.1/S02.014

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