EIRO 2005 ANNUAL REVIEW

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Introduction

The 2005 annual review aims to provide an overview of the main developments in industrial relations at EU level and in EU Member States plus Norway and the accession countries of Bulgaria and Romania.

National centre contributions for country chapters

Your contribution must answer all points listed in the questionnaire below - if a particular question is not relevant, there have been no developments concerning a particular topic, or no data is available, this should be stated. Where national centres do not follow the questionnaire structure, or fail to make any response at all to any question, the questionnaire will be returned to the national centre concerned for correct completion.

The format of the individual country chapters will remain largely the same as in previous years, so national centres should aim to submit a contribution which is similar in style and format to last year’s published chapter for their country on EIROnline. Please look at your edited contribution for 2004 (not the original material submitted) for an indication of the framework to follow. In addition to the usual questions, this year the special topics to be looked at are:

• collective bargaining and social dialogue relating to labour migration from the new Member States to the old Member States; and

• collective bargaining and social dialogue relating to corporate social responsibility.

National contributions should not be more than 2,500 words in length - brief summary information is therefore required (please make sure you adhere to this limit, otherwise your contribution will be cut in order to keep the size of the whole review within set limits).

Your contribution must include all relevant references to previous EIRO records for your country, in addition to any other references as appropriate.

Important: please use this EIRO template questionnaire to respond. Please remember to propose this as a January feature and submit it in the normal way.

Please submit your contribution by 13 January 2006.

If you have any queries on the content of the questionnaire, please contact:

Andrea Broughton, tel: 44 20 8212 1987, fax: : 44 20 8662 2041 e-mail: andrea.broughton@irseclipse.co.uk

If you have any administrative queries, please contact Shivaun Lindberg.

1. Political data

Please give brief details of:

• Any general or significant regional/local elections which were held in 2005

• Any significant political events which took place in 2005

• Any forthcoming national or important regional/local elections or significant political events

If there have been no political events of note over the past 12 months, please give details of the government currently in power

The most important political debate in the last year in Slovenia was that around the package of some 70 economic, social and tax reforms announced by the Slovene government that was elected at the end of last year. In the centre-right coalition government are the Slovenian Democrats (Slovenska demokratska stranka, SDS), New Slovenia (Nova Slovenija, NSi), the People’s Party (Slovenska ljudska stranka, SLS) and the Pensioners’ Party (Demokraticana stranka upokojencev, DeSUS). The government is lead by the Prime Minister Janez Janša, the leader of SDS.

During 2005 Slovenia presided to the 55-member Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which was successfully concluded with the Ljubljana Ministerial Conference in December.

In 2005 Slovenia started the preparations for Slovenia’s presidency of the EU, alongside Portugal and Germany, from the beginning of the 2007 to mid-2008.

2. Collective bargaining update

Please give details of the number of collective agreements negotiated in 2005 by level (eg national, sectoral, company), compared with numbers of agreements negotiated in 2004. Outline any trends/shifts between levels of bargaining.

Please give details of significant collective bargaining developments concerning the following specific themes:

• Pay (including both general trends and the level of collectively-agreed pay increases)

• Working time (including working time reductions and flexibility agreements)

• Job security

• Equal opportunities and diversity issues, including efforts to close pay inequalities

• Training and skills development

• Any other issues which have featured significantly in your country during 2005

In 2005 overall, 22 sectoral agreements were concluded, amended or changed. Sectoral agreements for timber industry and metal industry were cancelled. The newly-concluded sectoral collective agreements include:

• the collective agreement for construction (1 January 2005);

• the collective agreement for forestry (1 January 2005);

• the collective agreement for extraction and processing of non-metal minerals (26 August 2005)

• the collective agreement for electro industry (9 November 2005);

• the collective agreement for metal industry (9 November 2005).

In September 2005, several employers’ organisations cancelled the General collective agreement for the commercial sector (SI0510306N). The negotiations over the new General collective agreement are still going on. A shift towards partial decentralisation of collective bargaining is currently in prospect, and it is expected that the general collective agreement as it exists now for the private sector will lose significance, while sectoral collective agreements will gain importance and become the cornerstones of the system. The biggest trade union confederation, Association of Free Trade Unions (Zveza Svobodnih sindikatov Slovenije, ZSSS) was actively pursuing this scenario, while the employers’ organisations, and particularly the Chamber for Commerce and Industry (Gospodarska zbornica Slovenije, GZS) want to retain the centralised bargaining structure, with the General Collective Agreement defining the minimum standards.

Over a year lasting negotiations over national collective agreement for journalists still did not bring results in 2005 (SI0502302F).

Pay

During 2005, tariff parts of the majority of sectoral collective agreements were brought into line with the last years’ tripartite agreement on pay policy in the private sector for the period 2004-05 (Dogovor o politiki plac v zasebnem sektorju v obdobju 2004-5) (SI0405101N).

Trade unions reacted strongly to commentaries by Jože P. Damjan, new Minister without Portfolio for Coordination and Monitoring of Slovenia's Development Strategy, who, while he was a member of the government strategic economic council, called for abolishing minimal wages in order to boost the labour market flexibility.  Moreover, trade unions announced that if the government decides for a flat, 20% tax rate, they would demand a corresponding increase in wages.

Trade unions criticized the announcement of the Ministry of Health about cuts of sick leave benefits and pointed out that prevention of ill-health absenteeism should be dealt with by resolving of problems related to occupational diseases and health and safety at the workplace (SI0505301N).

Working time

In June 2005, Slovenia rejected the European Commision’s compromise proposal on the working time directive. As a reaction to the standpoint of the Minister of Labour, Janez Drobnic, in discussion over EU working time directive (SI0507301F) that general EU weekly working time limit of 48 hours should be raised to 65 hours, the biggest trade union, the Association of Free Trade Unions of Slovenia (Zveza svobodnih sindikatov Slovenije, ZSSS) announced that it will oppose any government’s attempt to extend maximum permitted weekly working time in exceptional circumstances. The statutory weekly working time in Slovenia stands at 40 hours, which could be increased to 48 with overtime.

Job security

Job security provisions are absent from the collective agreements concluded/amended in 2005.

It is to be seen how much the envisaged balance between different aims (flexibility and security) declared in the National Reform Programme for Employment 2005 will be implemented. Both quality of work and security at the labour market are mentioned in the text, but, as changes aimed at more flexibility are given a lot of attention and the details on how the balance between flexibility and security will be provided are not present, it could be expected that the further flexibility will go in the direction of more intensification of work and lesser social security. Based on experiences of flexible working/employment practices in other countries and already noticed trends in Slovenia, it could be expected that changes could have gender specific and, for women, negative consequences (segregation of women in more flexible jobs and jobs of lesser quality). Proposed changes in the social security system could also have gender specific consequences (e.g. more of already feminised unpaid and care work).

In October, government amended the Act Governing the rescue and reconstructing aid for companies in difficulties that is aimed at raising the job security in the most threatened environments.

Equal opportunities and diversity issues

In 2005 the Office for Equal Opportunities (Urad za enake možnosti, UEM) prepared the Resolution on the National Programme for Equal Opportunities that states distinctive aims, programmes and measures related to gender equality as well as responsible actors and indicators of successful implementation of measures. The four aims for equal opportunities of men and women in employment and work are mentioned in the Resolution:

• decrease of gender discrimination in employment and work;

• decrease of differences in employment and unemployment of men and women,

• increase of self-employment of women and female entrepreneurship,

• decrease of vertical and horizontal segregation and gender pay gap.

Beside these aims there is an additional aim oriented to the achievement of quality working environment free of any kind of harassment, i.e. better prevention and sanctioning of sexual and other harassment at work.

Slovenia is one of five countries that are trying to host the seat of the new EU Gender Equality Institute, which is to start working in 2007.

In March, the Office for Equal Opportunities addressed a letter to trade unions and employers’ organisations reminding them that in new collective agreements attention should be paid to some gender equality related provisions (non-sexist language, prohibition of discrimination, physical, psychological and sexual harassment). Executive secretary of the biggest trade union confederation, Association of Free Trade Unions of Slovenia (Zveza svobodnih sindikatov Slovenije, ZSSS) supported this letter and reminded ZSSS members of the proposal of provisions for equal opportunities that was prepared in 2004 to be included in newly negotiated sectoral collective agreements.

In December, the government adopted Strategy on accessibility of constructed environment, information, and communications for persons with disabilities.

Training and skills development

Raising the level of education is one of the most important aims of the Strategy of the development of labour market and employment in period 2000-2006 and the emphasis on education and lifelong learning remains important in all strategy and programme documents in the 2005. Trade unionists estimate that in the last year training and skills development received more attention in collective bargaining. Both employers and workers were more prepared to investments (of time and money) into training.

Other issues

In December, the government adopted the Programme of Active Employment policy for 2006 that defines priority target groups of unemployed (young, elderly and seekers of the first employment), and sufficient/deficit occupations. The programme stresses the measures aimed at creation of new jobs (especially in services and social services). 40% of the budget is earmarked to training and education, 32% for creation of new jobs and 19% for employment incentives.

Please make sure you fill out all of these sections. If there is no relevant information, please state this.

(In this section, where no statistics [from official or other sources] are available on the number of collective agreements, or of agreements on specific themes, please give your view of how collective bargaining has developed in 2005, referring to the main events of the year from your own monitoring for EIRO purposes.)

3. Legislative developments

Are there any legislative developments which have taken place in your country in 2005 which are not mentioned in any of the other sections? If so, please give details, including a short contextual summary.

In February 2005, the government adopted amendments to the Law on Commercial Companies (LCC). In October, the government adopted a draft new Law on Commercial Companies, which implements the SE Regulation, and submitted it to the parliament for the first reading (SI0511303F).

In July, the government adopted comprehensive amendments to the Law on public servants (LPS), which equalize the status of employees in public sector with those in private sector. In July, the Law on the Pay System in the Public Sector (LPSPS) was passed. As some provisions of LPSPS require implementation through collective agreements, this law makes collective agreements compulsory in the public sector. (SI0510304F).

In November, the Law on employment rehabilitation of people with disabilities was amended and it is in force since the beginning of 2006. The most important news is the introduction of quotas for employment of persons with disabilities (at least 2% and up to 6% of employed in companies).

Many of new legislative documents were debated or put into parliamentary procedure during 2005.

After the conclusion of debate over the Draft Law on Collective Agreements (LCA) (SI0509301F, SI0508303F, SI0510307F) at the Economic Social Council (Ekonomsko socialni svet, ESS), it entered the parliamentary procedure in December 2005. It could be expected that the law that has been in preparation for almost a decade, will be passed in the first half of 2006. The Draft Law defines the collective bargaining as voluntary negotiations among employers’ and workers’ representative organisations with voluntary membership. The bill allows a three year transitory period in which organisations with obligatory membership (such as Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia), would be able to conclude collective agreements. The level of collective bargaining is the question over which social partners did not reach a consensual opinion - while trade unions insist that the branch-level collective agreements are an important instrument of regulating relations between employers and the workers and of protecting workers’ rights, employers are in favour of decentralised company level collective agreements that would in their opinion enhance competitive economic strength and flexibility of labour market. There are also still opened questions of penalties for employers who violate agreements and the mechanisms that will give collective agreements universal application.

In December, the government prepared a Commerce Chambers Bill (SI0506302F) that should be discussed at the beginning of 2006. The main aim of the new law is to make membership of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Gospodarska zbornica Slovenije, GZS) voluntary. The proposal already faced criticism from GZS, which is the biggest Slovene employers’ organisation (currently with compulsory membership), and which claims that the proposal puts different chambers in Slovenia in unequal position and that it would be against the best interests of the economy and counter to the expectations of GZS members, as it would cause decline of the GZS, which performs an important role of a strong and influential umbrella employers’ organisation. The proposal was also criticized by the opposition Social Democrats Party (Socialni demokrati, SD), which announced that they will prepare their own draft of law on economic chambers.

During 2005, employers expressed opinions about the necessity of further amending the Employment relationship Act, especially regarding the provisions on employment termination, sick leave, and wages.

In December the government prepared the Law on Records Relating to Labour and Social Security Fields. Trade unions expressed critical comments on it (especially considering protection of personal data). The comments were answered by the government and the necessity of such a law was explained.

Slovenia is running late in the transposition of the Statute for a European Company Directive (SE Directive) as its implementation has made no visible progress since October when the draft of the new Law on Companies (LC) was submitted to the parliamentary procedure.

Two EU Directives were notified in 2005: Directive 2002/44/ES on minimal health and safety standards and Directive 2002/73/ES on realisation of the principle of equal treatment of men and women in employment, training and promotions at work and working conditions.

4. The organisation and role of the social partners

Have there been any changes in the organisation and role of the social partners in your country (e.g. trade union or employers’ organisation mergers or decisions about participation in bargaining) during 2005? If so, please give details.

Besides already mentioned debate and expected changes in the role of employers’ organisations with obligatory membership, the most important development regarding social partners were the preparations for the start of negotiations on the 2006-2009 social agreement.

In July, the government has adopted draft standpoints for negotiations on the 2006-2009 social agreement, based on the currently valid social agreement, government coalition agreement and the development strategy of Slovenia. Flat tax, proposed by the governmental package of structural reforms, presents the biggest obstacle to reaching a social agreement for the next period. The four biggest trade union confederations expressed a strong resistance to the flat tax. They argue that it would decline the living standard of the majority of workers. Nevertheless, the start of the negotiations over the new social agreement could be estimated as a positive sign of a changed position of the government towards the importance of social dialogue, which during the 2005 did not show a lot of preparedness for a consensual social partners’ supported methods of work. The need to abandon social dialogue and replace it with a discussion of a wider group of stakeholders was declared in the governments’ strategy of development. However, in his latest statements the newly appointed Minister without Portfolio for Coordination and Monitoring of Slovenia's Development Strategy Jože P. Damjan, expressed his acknowledgement of the importance of the social dialogue. The statement of the Labour Minister Janez Drobnic regarding uncertainty about his role of the main negotiator at the government side raised again the question of how much weight the government puts on these negotiations. The trade unions objected this statement and demanded the ministerial level of governments’ representative due to the nature and the importance of the dialogue. GZS expressed its support to the start of negotiations over the new social agreement that is according to their opinion a pillar of social dialogue. GZS also totally supports government’s draft standpoints for negotiations.

5. Industrial action

Please give brief details of major strikes and industrial action in your country during 2005 (including any statistics available, if only for part of the year). Please highlight any particularly significant developments which have taken place over the past year.

Certainly, the most important industrial action in 2005 were demonstrations on 26 December organised by four biggest Slovene trade unions, Students organisation of Slovenia, and pensioners against government’s package of reforms. Organisers claim that at the country’s biggest demonstrations in years participated 40,000 people, while police figures are at 25,000. The main targets of critique were the following: the proposed introduction of a general 20% flat tax rate, decrease in job security (making dismissals less difficult), further increase in atypical forms of employment (fixed-term contracts) and decline of social security.

Two strikes were announced (in metal and electro industry) in 2005, but not realised (SI0510305N). The Railway Workers’ Union of Slovenia called a strike for 11 January, but it was postponed for two months. (SI0501305F). However, in November, several short strikes were organised by the Railway Traffic union of Slovenia (SZPS) and some smaller rail trade unions (SI0512304F).

6. Employee participation

Have there been any legislative or other significant developments in the area of employee information and consultation (and other forms of participation) in your country in 2005? Have there been any developments related to the implementation of the European Company Statute (EU0206202F) or the Directive on national information and consultation rights (EU0204207F), or any debate on these issues (eg. any indication on the extent to which companies headquartered in your country intend to use the European Company Statute to incorporate as a European Company)? Have there been any significant developments connected with European Works Councils over the past year?

Slovenia did not meet the implementation dead-line for transposing the EU Directive on employee involvement in the European Company Statute in December 2004 (SI0501303F), but in December 2005 the government adopted the draft of the new Law on participation of workers in the European Company that would transpose the EU Directive in Slovene legislation.

The draft law on profit-sharing that was supported by both trade unions and GZS was rejected by the government in September and thus after almost a decade of preparations, the profit sharing in Slovenia still lacks legislative support (SI0412303F). The government announced that it will prepare a new draft law on profit sharing in the second trimester of the 2006 as it recognises the need to support profit sharing and employee ownership, but not legally defined as in the rejected draft law.

The opposition Social Democrats (SD) have filed an amendment that would introduce worker participation also under the one-tier management system.

7. Labour migration

Please give a summary of the debate on labour migration, including any discussion of the proposed EU services Directive (the Bolkestein Directive). If you are reporting from an old Member State (the EU15 including Norway), please give details of whether your government has put into place restrictions on labour migration from new Member States (as permitted by the EU) and whether it intends to lift these restrictions in 2006. Please include any statistics if available and/or brief details of any particularly interesting cases.

If you are reporting from a new Member State (the 10 that joined on 1 May 2004) or a candidate country, please summarise the debate on labour migration from your country to the old Member States, including any relevant statistics and/or a summary of any interesting cases. If any issue has been reported already in EIRO, readers can be pointed to the relevant EIRO inbrief or feature for a more detailed overview.

The old EU member states with the exception of Ireland, Sweden and UK restricted the access of Slovenian workers to their markets for a transitional period. According to data from the Employment service of Slovenia (Zavod Republike Slovenije za zaposlovanje, ZRSZ), there were 3,941 workers from other EU Member states who registered for employment, work or provision of services in Slovenia in the period from 1 May 2004 to 31 March 2005. The Employment service does not have data on the number of Slovene citizens employed abroad, as many of EU countries do not have registers of foreign workers. Slovenia supports the elimination of the restrictions on the free movement of the labour inside the EU. According to the Labour Minister Janez Drobnic, Slovenia does not pose a threat to labour markets in any of the old EU member state and the restrictions for Slovene workers should be eased.

In February, the ZSSS strongly opposed EU draft services Directive (SI0503301F).

In March, the government adopted the 2005 quota on permits for non-EU foreign nationals (SI0504304F). The figure was set at 16,700 permits.

8. Corporate social responsibility

Please give details of any developments in collective bargaining or social dialogue in the area of corporate social responsibility. This may take the form of company-level agreements, international agreements in multi-national companies that are headquartered in your country, or agreements at national or sectoral level. If no examples of agreements exist, please give an overview of the debate in your country.

The corporate social responsibility has not yet been introduced as a topic into collective bargaining, but it is increasingly becoming a part of public discussions in which social partners participate as well.

At the end of 2004, the GZS organised a conference on Corporate Social Responsibility as a part of the business vision of a modern company.

In September 2005, the government established an inter-sector work group for implementation of CSR that will prepare a national report on corporate social responsibility. Slovenia still does not have a national system for verification of CSR.

In December 2005, ZSSS organised a press conference devoted to the corporate social responsibility. ZSSS officials argued that CRS in Slovenia is not sufficiently present and that alongside to some highly socially responsible companies, there are many companies in Slovenia that act irresponsibly and create profits based on dismissals, fixed-term and other precarious employments.

9. New forms of work

This is a topic that encompasses part-time work, fixed-term contracts, temporary work through agencies, tele-working, on-call working or any other atypical types of working. Have there been any legislative or other significant developments - such as collective agreements or social partner policy statements - during the past year concerning these types of atypical work?

Further, if there have been any significant trends concerning the growth of a particular form of atypical work in your country, please include brief statistical details and a summary of the debate and/or direction of possible action on that issue.

In spite of some increase in recent years, part time employment is still not extensively used in Slovenia. In 2004, there were 9.3% persons in employment working part-time: 7.9% of men and 11.0% of women. 2004 LFS data also show that 5 % of men and 8 % of women are underemployed (working part-time, but would like to work more). The majority of the underemployed are women (58.9%).

The survey on the labour market flexibility in Slovenia in June 2004 (SORS, 2005b) indicated that the majority of surveyed persons in Slovenia would like to work in full time employment. The gender differences are very small: 93% male employees and 89% female employees answered that they would not like to work part-time. More than a half of workers who work part-time would prefer to work full time. If employed persons had the possibility to choose between shorter working time for the same salary and the same working time with a higher salary, the majority (69% of men and 68% of women) would decide for the second option.

The survey also showed very high preparedness of both sexes to work earlier in the morning or later in the afternoon (for higher salary or additional free time): 85% of men and 83% of women expressed their preparedness to work in unsocial hours. Both women (58%) and men (56%) showed preparedness to work whenever the employer would request (for higher salary or additional free time).

Fixed term employment contracts are more present in Slovenia than part-time employment. There were 10.3% of employees in fixed term contracts in Slovenia in 2003 compared to 9.5% EU-25 average. While male fixed term employment in Slovenia was equal to the average of male fixed term employment in EU-25 (10.1%), women in Slovenia were more often in this type of employment (10.5%) than women in EU-25 in average (8.7 %). According to the data of Employment Service (ESS, 2004) the majority of new jobs (73.7 %) in 2004 were fixed term employments. Data for 2004 show that fixed-term employment increased for women (to 13.6 %) and for men (to 13.1%), so now both male and female rates are above EU-25 averages of 11.0 % for men and 9.2 % for women.

The share of tele-workers among persons in employment in 2004 was 2.6%: 2.2% of men and 3.1% of women.

Most of the used forms of flexible employment and working practices in Slovenia are unfriendly to employees and their families, while friendly forms (innovative and adaptable forms of work organization that would improve quality of work) are rare. The Programme of active Employment policy envisages measures that would increase part time work and mobility of workers. It is to be seen what the effects of these measures will be from the standpoint of quality of employment and life of employees and their ability for reconciliation of working and private/family obligations. There are no measures envisaged that would be aimed at increasing of quality of working life (by introducing employee/family friendly work organizations).

While in most cases atypical work practices are still not a part/issue of collective bargaining, the unsuccessful negotiations over collective agreement of journalists is an indicator of the situation in which an increased number of employees that are in non-standard forms of employment (fixed term-contracts, self-employment) are not members of trade unions and/or not covered by collective agreements.

10. Other relevant developments

Have there been any other significant industrial relations developments over the past year which have not been mentioned above? If so, please give details.

A lot of publicity in economy and public discussions were devoted to changes in top management of some of the biggest companies in Slovenia that were criticized as politically motivated and disputable.

11. Outlook

In order to enable us to include a conclusion and forward-looking section at the end of each national contribution, please give an overview of the issues, which are likely to dominate the coming year in your country.

The coming year will be surely dominated by the implementation of structural economic and social reforms proposed by the government at the end of 2005. Reforms’ minister Jože Damijan estimated that the next year will be a year of compromises and social dialogue that will hopefully contribute to the realisations of reform’s aims. Based on that, it could be expected that the government will, much more than in the last year, cooperate with social partners in order to adopt both economically and socially optimal results.

Another government’s top priority in 2006 will be adequate conclusion of preparations for EU Presidency in 2007. In 2006 local elections will be held in Slovenia, while presidential elections are envisaged for 2007.

In 2006, Slovenia has to conclude Euro changeover preparations in order to get positive estimation in the European Commission Convergence Report in 2006. According to Finance Minister Andrej Bajuk, Slovenia fulfilled all the Maastricht convergence criteria already by the end of 2005 and it is on course to introducing the Euro with the onset of 2007.