The government amended the legislation on social dialogue

According to a press release from the Ministry of Labour, the parties that initiate and participate in sectoral collective bargaining, at each level of negotiation, unit, group of units, sectoral and national, were thus regulated and more clearly defined, both for the public environment and for the environment private.

The decision was taken in order to be able to carry out the Country Recommendations received from the European Commission in the period 2016-2022, those of the International Labor Organization from 2015, 2018, 2022 and the provisions provided by the National Recovery and Resilience Program and to eliminate any other legislative loopholes that may generate negative economic effects on the labor market.

Among the amendments and additions made to Law no. 367/2022, of the emergency ordinance, include:

– the introduction, within the generic name of trade union organization, of the territorial trade union, alongside the trade union, the trade union federation and the trade union confederation, which are established on the basis of the right of free association of workers, in order to promote their professional, economic, social, cultural interests -artistic and sports, but also for the defense of their individual and collective rights, provided for in collective and individual labor contracts, collective labor agreements and service relations, collective labor agreements, as well as in national legislation, pacts, treaties and international conventions to which Romania is a party;

– redefining the notion of collective bargaining sectors, as the sectors of the national economy in which the social partners agree to negotiate collectively and which are established by the Tripartite National Council for Social Dialogue; these are approved by order of the minister in charge of social dialogue, which is published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I and not by a decision of the Government, as was foreseen until now;

– completing the notion of depository of the contract/collective labor agreement, this being the competent public authority to register both contracts and collective labor agreements, respectively the Ministry of Labor and Social Solidarity (MMSS);

– strengthening the control capacity of the Labor Inspectorate, by submitting to the court, by the union and employers’ organizations, the proof issued by the territorial labor inspectorate, for the acceptance of the representativeness file at the court;

– clarification of some procedures regarding the representativeness file at the level of group of units and collective bargaining sector, to strengthen the control capacity of the MMSS, and to be able to respond to the requests for quantification of some indicators regarding the social dialogue, for the correlation with the indicators provided for in the Program Operational Education and Employment, as well as the requests of various entities of the European Commission;

– granting the confederations the right to participate in the sectoral negotiation, based on the mandate received from the member federation and in the interest of the members they represent, the confederation to notify, in this sense, the list of the units in which the members they represent in collective bargaining;

– the introduction of the provision that all collective labor contracts concluded at the collective bargaining sector level or at the national level contain specific clauses applicable to each category of SMEs, defined according to the Social Dialogue Law no. 346/2004, in order to ensure an extended protection of the Romanian capital, consisting mainly of SMEs;

The document also contains provisions that amend and supplement Law no. 53/2003 – Labor Code, including:

– the express establishment of the material competence of the tribunals to judge in the first instance all types of individual and collective labor conflicts; at the same time, the appeal deadlines are regulated;

– the obligation of collective bargaining at unit level, with the exception of the case where the employer employs less than 10 employees, compared to less than 21, as was foreseen until now.