Living and working in Romania

From a political perspective, although the main actors have remained the same, the rise of extremist parties, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians and SOS Romania, must be noted, which collectively are supported by a quarter of the electorate. The year 2024 will be crucial politically, with scheduled European, local, parliamentary and presidential elections.

The number of employment contracts in 2023 was approximately 6.7 million, almost 1 million more than in 2013. The enactment of the new Law on Social Dialogue, No. 367/2022, led to the conclusion of new collective labour agreements, including at sector level for health and pre-university education. However, the new collective agreements do not include provisions to respond to inflation; most of them merely reproduce legal provisions, adding rather marginal additional rights for workers.

Consequently, the Law on Social Dialogue, adopted at the end of 2022, underwent substantial modifications through Government Emergency Ordinance No. 42/2023. The amendments address new procedural aspects, such as the acquisition of legal personality by trade unions and employers’ associations, conditions for obtaining legal representativeness, mandatory inclusion of clauses for small and medium-sized enterprises in collective agreements, detailed rules for territorial trade unions, and, most importantly, new rules regarding participants in collective bargaining. One change brought about by these amendments is that territorial trade unions can join trade union confederations, despite not having legal personality. The aim of a trade union is expanded to promoting professional, economic, social, cultural, artistic and sporting interests, and to defending individual and collective rights, as provided for in collective and individual employment contracts, collective bargaining agreements and service agreements, international covenants, treaties and conventions to which Romania is a party. Aiming to revitalise social dialogue, these modifications have increased the number of sectors for collective bargaining to 58 in 2023, compared with 30 prior to that.

2023 was marked by a considerable number of industrial actions and strikes, especially in the private sector. These targeted professional categories such as teachers, medical staff, prison police and even magistrates (although the latter, according to the law, are not allowed to strike). The government’s intention to reduce the value of pensions for magistrates sparked extensive protest action among them, which consisted of postponing all but urgent cases for an indefinite period.

Following the implementation of Directive 2019/1158 on work–life balance for parents and carers, several new legislative acts provide workers with the right to additional leave and allow employees who are parents to work remotely for four days a month. The directive has been transposed since 2022, through Law 283/2022, which amended the Labour Code. Under the new law 241/2023, parents of children up to 11 years of age can request to work remotely for four days per month and the employer cannot refuse if (in a change from the previous version) the nature of the work allows it. The new law goes beyond the requirements of the directive.

Working time remains a focal point for the social partners, who included various provisions in the collective agreements concluded in this sphere. A decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which requires the accumulation of daily and weekly rest, has generated practical difficulties for companies, as it leads to the obligation to grant the worker 60 consecutive hours off each week.