Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2018, published 108th ILC session (2019)

Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98) - Slovakia (Ratification: 1993)

Article 4 of the Convention. Promotion of collective bargaining. Extension of collective agreements. In its previous comments, the Committee had requested the Government to provide details on the functioning of the extension procedure in practice and to provide information on the ruling to be handed down by the Constitutional Court concerning the relevant section of the Collective Bargaining Act. The Committee notes the Government’s indication that through ruling No. PL. ÚS 31/2015 of 16 March 2016, the Constitutional Court declared that section 7 of the Collective Bargaining Act was unconstitutional and that, as a result, the provisions of the Collective Bargaining Act regarding the extension of collective agreements were amended. The Committee notes that, according to the new provisions: (i) extensions apply to representative collective agreements defined by law as those agreements that, on the one hand, cover, through the companies affiliated to the signing employers’ organizations, more employees than other multi-employer collective agreements and, on the other hand, are signed by trade unions that are present in at least 30 per cent of companies active in the sector; (ii) contracting parties should notify the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family (MPSVR SR) when they conclude a representative collective agreement, and, in contrast to previous decisions on the extension, the MPSVR SR only validates the representativeness of collective agreements and informs about the result by legal notice; and (iii) the MPSVR SR has established a special tripartite commission in which employers’ and workers’ organizations have the opportunity to submit their observations on the fulfilment of the condition of representativeness. The Committee requests the Government to provide information on the practical application of this new system, and in particular the role of the social partners in its functioning. More generally, it also requests the Government to provide statistical information on the number of collective agreements concluded and in force in the country, specifying the sectors and number of workers covered.