Ministry to persuade trade unions and employers with labour market reform?

Deadline for deal slowly approaching

At yesterday's press-conference the Slovenian Association of Free Trade Unions emphasized that since the last labour market reform in 2013, Slovenia's OECD index on the protection of employees has fallen below the OECD countries' average. Foto: BoBo

The Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, faces the last round of negotiations on the "mini labour market reform." The ministry's wish to have the legislation package ready for the government in May seems unlikely to happen. Employers insist that negotiations have to be held together on all the affected laws, which would mean redefining the conditions for laying off employees – something the trade unions strongly oppose.

The mini labour market reform includes the amending of three acts: the Employment Relationship Act, the Labour Inspection Act, and the Labour Market Regulation Act. However, in its last proposal the ministry excluded the Employment Relationship Act from the negotiations, angering employer representatives. The key change in the amendments to the Employment Relationship Act is the redefinition of the conditions for laying off workers.
The ministry initially withdrew a proposal for the possibility of terminating an employment relationship contract due to a loss of trust between an employer and employee, after it was opposed by the trade unions. The ministry then tried with a softer version of terminating a contract because of incompetence from subjective reasons. That proposal also failed to convince the unions, and it has already been removed from the ministry's latest draft document.

"No one will lay off a worker who does a good job"
At yesterday's press-conference the Slovenian Association of Free Trade Unions emphasized that since the last labour market reform in 2013, Slovenia's OECD index on the protection of employees has fallen below the OECD countries' average. That is why the ministry has failed to persuade the unions with its arguments for greater labour market flexibility. But Branko Meh from the Chamber of Craft and Small Businesses of Slovenia (OZS) says they insist on the proposal because of the many abuses that happen in practice.

"No employer will lay off a worker who does a good job. But while we have bad employers, which in my opinion represent a minority, there are also bad employees. I'm referring to those employees who always look for ways on how to abuse certain regulations and do a poor job. All we want is to be able to lay off those types of workers and nothing else. As tradesmen we're well aware that our workshops mean nothing without employees," stressed Mr. Meh. According to Meh employers will insist that the negotiations on the amendments to all three acts take place simultaneously. "The negotiations have to see each side give in a little. You can't only have one of the parties making concessions," added Meh.

Luka Lukič; translated by K. J.