A seminar on social dialogue in the new EU Member States, held in Sofia in April 2008, gave an opportunity for the Bulgarian social partners to discuss the development of social dialogue in their country. Both trade unions and employers expressed their views on issues such as tripartite and bipartite dialogue, the structure of collective bargaining and workplace information and consultation.
A seminar on ‘Social dialogue in the EU: practices and perspectives for the new Member States’ was organised in Sofia on 11 April 2008 by the Bulgarian Economic and Social Council and LASAIRE (Laboratoire social d’action, d'’innovation et d’échanges) (http://www.lasaire.net/), a French think-tank. The seminar formed part of a LASAIRE project entitled ‘Social players, relaunching Europe and globalisation’, supported by the European Commission and the European Economic and Social Committee.
The broad purpose of the seminar was to promote discussion among the European and national social partners and their greater involvement in resolving social policy problems. The specific focus of discussion was social dialogue at sector and company level, with the presentation of a number of cases from Bulgaria. Among those contributing to the debate were the European Commission, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), LASAIRE, IRES (a French research institute), the German Metalworkers’ Union (IGMetall) and the European Chemical Employers Group. Bulgaria was represented by the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB), the Confederation of Labour ‘Podkrepa’ (CL ‘Podkrepa’), the Bulgarian Industrial Association, the Union for Private Economic Enterprise and the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.
Discussion at the seminar highlighted some of the key features and peculiarities of social dialogue in Bulgaria, and the social partners’ views on its challenges and development.
Main features of social dialogue
The characteristic features of Bulgarian social dialogue stressed by participants at the seminar included the following:
- Both tripartite and bipartite forms of social dialogue have developed, but tripartite dialogue (involving employers, unions and the government) was predominant for a long time.
- Bipartite forms of social dialogue began to become more important only when the main stage of the privatisation process had finished and the state began to withdraw as a main regulator of the economy. However, the bipartite social dialogue is still insufficiently developed, especially at the company level.
- Small and micro-companies have not become involved in social dialogue to a sufficient degree.
- Compared with most EU Member States, systems of workplace information and consultation have been slow to develop in Bulgaria (BG0804019I), beginning in earnest only in the second half of 2006.
Employers’ views
The main perspectives on social dialogue expressed by employers and employer associations at the event were as follows:
- Employers usually prefer decentralisation of social dialogue. Sometimes they prefer to have the government present as a third party.
- They suggest that social dialogue should focus on labour market policies, lifelong learning, improving social security, and making the labour market and labour relations more flexible.
- They generally prefer to have framework collective agreements at sector level, rather than more detailed agreements, but also recognise the importance of sectoral bargaining for company bargaining.
- Some employers, especially the Bulgarian subsidiaries of multinational companies (an example is the Solvay chemicals concern) not only accept employees’ information and consultation rights but also try to use information and consultation structures for the purposes of their business.
Trade union views
Although trade union representatives at the seminar identified some good social dialogue practices and favourable results, they focused more on perceived problems. According to the unions:
- The organisation of employers is not yet complete.
- Many employers are members of two or more associations, and it is not clear which is their main representative in the social dialogue process.
- Trade unions are not yet consolidated, and merger processes proceed with great difficulty.
- Sometimes there is a lack of real will to negotiate, mainly on the employers’ side, and lengthy bargaining processes may end without results.
- There is no national system for monitoring collective bargaining.
- Although the extension of sectoral agreements to non-signatory employers is possible under the Labour Code, this depends on the will of the government, and the procedure has not yet been used.
- Trade unions in general support information and consultation at the workplace and some company-level union structures have begun to integrate themselves in these systems (as at Solvay). However, some trade union officials and shop stewards would prefer not to have alternative representation channels at company level.
Commentary
Social dialogue in Bulgarian has, over time, moved a long way towards EU norms, but it still needs to be improved. Some of the conclusions of the April seminar in Bulgaria will be presented at another seminar, which will take place in France towards the end of 2008. The latter seminar will conclude the LASAIRE project and draw up a set of joint recommendations on social dialogue, in all Member States and the EU as a whole, which will be addressed to the French Presidency of the EU.
Ekaterina Ribarova, ISTUR