Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2022, published 111st ILC session (2023)

Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98) - Slovakia (Ratification: 1993)

Article 4 of the Convention. Promotion of collective bargaining. Extension of collective agreements. In its previous comments, the Committee had requested the Government to provide information on the functioning of the extension procedure for higher level collective agreements, as section 7 of the Collective Bargaining Act was amended pursuant to Constitutional Court ruling No. PL. ÚS 31/2015 of 16 March 2016. It further requested the Government to provide statistical information on the number of collective agreements concluded and in force in the country, specifying the sectors and number of workers covered. The Committee notes the Government’s indication that the provisions of the Act No. 2/1991 on Collective Bargaining regulating extensions for higher-level collective agreements were completely abolished on February 4, 2021; the provisions related to representative collective agreements of a higher level are deleted from this law, as well as the extension of their binding nature with regard to other employers and their employees in the sector or part of the sector for which they are concluded. In addition, according to the Government, this amendment does not permit, with effect from March 1, 2021, extending the binding effects of representative higher level collective agreements also to other employers who were not directly involved as a contracting party to such an agreement. The Committee takes note of this information. It recalls that it considers that the extension of collective agreements is not contrary to the principle of voluntary collective bargaining and that the Collective Agreements Recommendation, 1951 (No. 91), indicates that, “where appropriate, having regard to established collective bargaining practice, measures, to be determined by national laws or regulations and suited to the conditions of each country, should be taken to extend the application of all or certain stipulations of a collective agreement to all the employers and workers included within the industrial and territorial scope of the agreement”. Bearing in mind the obligation to promote collective bargaining that stems from article 4 of the Convention, the Committee requests the Government to assess with the social partners the effects of the suppression of the extension mechanism on the collective bargaining machinery in the country and, in particular, on the coverage rate of collective agreements. The Committee requests the Government to provide information in this respect.

Collective bargaining in practice. The Committee further notes the Government’s indication that: (i) there are 24 higher level collective agreements concluded in different sectors of activity; (ii) in 2021, the higher-level collective agreements (sectoral/multi-sectoral) covered 14.3 per cent of employees, while company collective agreements covered 54.5 per cent of employees in the private sector; and (iii) with regard to the public sector, out of approximately 400,000 employees, 275,000 are covered by collective agreements, including both from state and public services. The Committee notes that the Government adds that the data regarding the private sector are however not centrally collected but based on the reports of the individual contracting parties. The Committee indeed observes that the data on the coverage of collective bargaining in the country available through ILOSTAT appears to be lower than the figures mentioned. Emphasizing the importance of having solid statistical data in order to be able to evaluate more accurately the need to promote collective bargaining, the Committee encourages the Government to take the necessary measures to set up a database containing reliable and exhaustive information on the coverage of workers by collective agreements. The Committee therefore requests the Government to continue providing information on the number of collective agreements concluded and in force in the country, specifying the sectors as well as the number and percentage of workers covered.