Ministries and social partners debated amendments to the Labour Law for almost a year, but the Ministry of Welfare is submitting to the government meeting a previously unseen version of the draft law.
Ministries and social partners met for almost a year in the Human Capital Development Council (CAP) to agree on amendments to the Labour Law. A compromise agreement was reached, but the Minister of Welfare, Reinis Uzulnieks (ZZS), has submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers (MK) for consideration a completely different, previously unseen version, which now satisfies almost no one.
Information in the legislation portal shows that the Labour Law has been agreed collegially only by the ministries themselves, yet has not been agreed by the partners, and, peculiarly, neither the representatives of employers nor the representatives of employees are content. A “tacit consent”, which would be equivalent to “no objection”, comes from the Ministry of the Interior and the Free Trade Union Confederation of Latvia (LBAS). “Of course, it could be better, but in the view of the confederation this is more or less a moderate compromise,” says LBAS Deputy Chair Gita Oškāja. Meanwhile, objections have been submitted both by other trade unions and by the social partners with whom changes to the Labour Law were discussed for almost a year.
“We have objections of both a procedural nature and on substance. Amendments were discussed at length, countless meetings were held, but in the end an entirely different version appears in the MK harmonisation, one that does not include the agreed regulation on overtime pay, nor does it take into account the opinion on the term of collective agreements and other essential issues, such as equal opportunities to terminate an employment contract, regardless of whether an employee is or is not in a trade union,” points out the Director General of the Employers’ Confederation of Latvia, Kaspars Gorkšs.
He also says that the amendments to the Labour Law should be considered in the state budget law package together with other laws and in the context of budget expenditures. “If the overtime supplement were not 100% but 50%, at least 18 million could be saved annually in the state budget,” says Gorkšs.
It should be added that former Director of the State Chancellery Jānis Citskovskis, who is now charged in former Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš’s “flight case”, said in an interview with TV24 in mid-August that officials, who already hold several well-paid positions in state administration, are not ashamed to calculate overtime for themselves.
It is also interesting that at the time when LBAS, which brings together both private sector trade unions and public sector employees, notes the moderation of the draft law and sounds understanding also with regard to employers’ interests, the Trade Union of Local Government Employees of the Riga Region (RRPDA) rather unambiguously indicates a desire to entrench itself in state administration in the long term, eliminating even theoretical possibilities to reduce the number of employees in state administration. In its objections, RRPDA points out that it is not acceptable that when a collective agreement with an employer expires, it would remain in force only for another two years, and afterwards, if no agreement has been reached, the employer could unilaterally withdraw from it, giving six months’ prior notice.
The amendments to the Labour Law will be examined by the MK on Tuesday, 19 August, and after that they must still be examined by the Saeima.
Originally published at https://inc-baltics.com/process-pari-visam-pec-gadu-ilgam-diskusijam-ministrija-iesniedz-skatisanai-citu-likumprojekta-redakciju/
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