On Questions Surrounding Collective Agreements in Estonia
| Author | Kadi Pärnits |
| Pages | 124-129 |
Kadi Pärnits
On Questions Surrounding Collective Agreements in Estonia
A collective agreement is an agreement which, in addition to individual employment contracts, laws and other administrative acts, regulates employment relationships. The regulatory scope of collective agreements may be more detailed than that provided for in the legislation. On the level of the establishment, collective agreements, in comparison with individual employment contracts, guarantee more systematic regulation. The standardisation of employment relationship regulations is one of the aims of collective agreements on the industry level.
With collective agreements, a wider range of employment relationships is agreed upon than in the case of individual agreements. One may unquestioningly agree with the statement that collective agreements are one of the means of redistributing profits.
In the case of collective agreements, the force of the conditions of an agreement is greater than in agreements between individual employers and workers. In the case of breaches of the conditions of the collective agreement, an employer's control is greater than in the case of the breach of an individual agreement.
Despite the various positive principles mentioned above, and the fact that the negotiation of some labour conditions is delegated to collective agreements in the Estonian labour legislation, approximately 10% of Estonian workers were covered by collective agreements as of November 1997.
The survey carried out by the Association of Estonian Trade Unions did not cover the Confederation of Professional Employees, the Central Medical Workers' Federation, the Estonian Food and Agricultural Workers' Union or the Independent Seamen's Union.
Reasons differ for the low rate of the conclusion of agreements. In addition to other causal factors, some certainly arise from changes in the economy, the structure of the enterprise, the different means of doing work (many fixed-term contracts), the evaluation of work, payment according to contribution, the rise in the educational level of workers, improved training, the better organisation of management, developments in the employment of personnel, etc. The above factors also lead to individualisation in the negotiation of working conditions [1, pp. 124, 188]. The low level of trade union membership in Estonia, approximately 20% of the workforce, also undoubtedly plays a role. It must also be kept in mind that a large number of jobs in Estonia are provided by small enterprises.
Whereas the above tendencies function in most European countries, there are distinctively Estonian reasons why a tradition of concluding collective agreements has not developed.
It was not long ago that the sole employer in post-Soviet countries was the State, which regulated its workers' employment relationships in great detail with several acts. Unpredictability was largely excluded by agreements. Today, the number of employers is many times greater, and labour legislation leaves much unregulated.
The fear of collectivism, which has its origins in the past, largely rules out the collective solution of wage-related problems. Satisfactory wage agreements are few and far between. Ten such agreements have been concluded on the industry level by members of the Association of Estonian Trade Unions. In order to conclude such agreements, one must find a leader on at least the establishment level, find financial information and acquire knowledge and wage specialists in organisations in the industry.
The conclusion of collective agreements is regulated by the Collective Agreements Act, and disputes arising out of the entry into or performance of collective agreements are regulated by the Collective Labour Dispute Resolution Act.
According to the principles set down in Article 4 of ILO Convention No. 98 and Article 6 of the amended European Social Charter, measures appropriate to the national conditions shall be taken, where necessary, to introduce machinery to promote voluntary negotiation between employers or employers' organisations and workers' organisations, with a view to the regulation of terms and conditions of employment by means of collective agreements. Thus, this field is already regulated by law in most European countries. No so-called basic agreements between employers and workers' central organisations for the regulation of the conclusion of collective agreements between employers and workers have been concluded in Estonia. The first such agreement is in the preparatory stage. This agreement between central organisations promises to be general in its wording and accepting of the parties and their member organisations.
A collective agreement is a voluntary agreement. The Collective Agreements Act does not include the principle that parties commencing negotiations towards a collective agreement must begin negotiations in good faith (i.e. the conclusion of an agreement is intended in all events) and that the parties do not have the right to refuse negotiations.
According to the Act, the parties to a collective agreement may be, on the one hand, workers or their organisation, and on the other hand, employers or an employers' organisation (CAA § 2). Under the Act, the third party to the agreement is stated to be the Government of the Republic. This principle is rare in collective agreements and is presumably occasioned by the fact that the workers' and employers' central organisations are concluding an agreement on raising the minimum wage. Whether such trilateral agreement is a collective agreement with compulsory implementation and liability for non-compliance is another question [2, p. 92].
As can be seen, the existence of a trade union is not compulsory for the conclusion of a collective agreement. It is uniformly stated in the relevant legislation of most of the countries of Eastern and Western Europe that one of the parties to a collective agreement is a trade union. The 1970 ILO resolution on trade unions' rights and their connections with civil liberties clearly states that the conclusion of collective agreements is the primary right of trade unions.
It derives from the definition in the Estonian Collective Agreements Act that agreements may be concluded at the same time (on the level...
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