Compliance with the provisions of collective labour agreements, the primary task of trade unions

Although we have a pertinent institutional legal framework, this beneficial circumstance is not yet a safe premise to drive collective bargaining at all levels. Thus, according to the informative note on the progress of negotiation and conclusion of collective labour agreements, presented today, March 29, to the members of the Confederal Committee of the National Trade Union Confederation of Moldova (CNSM), for 11 years, from 2004 until 2015, only 15 national collective agreements, 7 basic conventions in different fields and 8 conventions for amending and completing existing conventions were concluded.

The basic explanation would be the hesitation of the social partners, which sometimes avoids the invitations of the trade unions to initiate negotiations on several projects launched by the CNSM. For example, at the beginning of 2015, the CNSM submitted to the social partners several draft conventions to modify and supplement the collective agreement at national level in order to determine the salary increase for work realised in unfavourable conditions depending on the country’s minimum wage. Unfortunately, the social partners have ignored the negotiations.

The same fate had the drafts of collective conventions at the national level elaborated by CNSM, such as “Socio-economic protection of young people”, “Methodological recommendations regarding the criteria and norms for evaluating the employee’s professional performances applied to the differentiation of wages in non-tariff payment systems”,”Approval of the way and conditions for granting drivers’ qualification classes “.

Despite the hesitations of the social partners, the CNSM intends to return to the promotion of 4 collective agreements.

At the same time, new collective bargaining projects are being developed and coordinated with the national-branch trade union centres and other authorities. Thus, the draft Collective Convention at national level “On the model of the Individual labour contract for the period of accomplishment of a certain work and the model of the Acceptance act” was finalized.

The draft Collective Convention at national level “On the Model of the Continuing Vocational Training Contract” has already been drafted and submitted for coordination. In a short time, it is expected to return to the amendment and completion of the Collective Convention “Paying Employees in Labour Relations based on Individual Labour Contracts” as regards to the determination of the addition for work done under noxious conditions.

At branch level, 19 collective agreements were concluded, but the validity of many of them expired last year.

Since the beginning of this year, 2 collective agreements have been signed at branch level: one by the Trade Union Federation “Sănătatea”, and the other by the Trade Union Federation of Workers from the Light Industry.

A dynamic trend is registered only  for collective labour agreements at the branch level. Last year, 37 more agreements were concluded comparing to the year 2016.

The informative note shows that only 310501 employees in the country benefit from the provisions of the collective labour agreements, while the total number of employees in the national economy amounts to 715 527 persons, which shows that only about 43% of the employees benefit from additional guarantees other than those provided for by law.

Therefore, it is imperative that the trade unions supplement their efforts in this respect, involve the social partners in the activities of promoting collective labour agreements, organize the training process on collective bargaining. But, the most important mission is to ensure compliance with the provisions contained in collective labour agreements as a cardinal premise to improve working conditions and payment of workers. So, the launch of the national campaign “Collective Labour Agreement – guarantee of your rights” in March 20-22 will stimulate the social partners’ negotiations from the perspective of promoting the importance of collective labour agreements as effective tools for social and economic protection of employees.

Department of mass media and international relations of CNSM