Overall in the Czech Republic, around 50% of workers are covered by collective bargaining while trade union density is at 21%.

General information on industrial relations in the Czech Republic is available on the ETUI’s Worker Participation website and on the EIRO website.

Collective bargaining system

Trade union rights are guaranteed by the constitution and there is a detailed legal framework for industrial relations in the Labour Code, Collective Bargaining Act and other legislation. Most of the legislation was established in the early 1990s following the end of communist control and then split from the Slovak Republic. A new Labour Code came into force on 1 January 2007. It sets out some basic arrangements like basic terms of employment, maximum working hours, minimum annual leave etc. Terms and conditions can be agreed in a more favourable way in collective agreements.

In a unionised organisation, remuneration and other terms and conditions can only be set in a collective agreement, or the collective agreement must contain a provision that the employer will issue an “internal regulation”.

There is no national level collective bargaining and only a small number of sectoral (in Czech terminology “higher-level”) collective agreements. Most collective bargaining takes place at local/company level.

The Council of Economic and Social Agreement is a form of tripartite social dialogue, although not established by law. In the early 1990s there were some accords on issues like maximum wage growth but it no longer intervenes so directly in the collective bargaining process. Sectoral social dialogue at national level takes place in working groups of the Council. Although the results are not binding, the employers mostly respect them.

Legal regulation of pay and working conditions

A number of working conditions are set in employment legislation, such as a statutory 40-hour working week. However, collective agreements can improve on this and reduction to a 37.5-hour week has been quite common. The minimum wage is legally set and occasionally adjusted. Apart from the minimum wage there is also a “guaranteed wage”. which set at different levels according to the demands and evaluation of the work performed.

Trade unions

The main trade union confederation is ČMKOS – the Czech-Moravian Confederation of Trade Unions whose affiliates organises some 70% of all trade union members. There are also several smaller union centres based on occupational, political or religious links – the Association of Autonomous Trade Unions (ASO), the Confederation of Art and Culture (KUK), the Trade Union Association of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia (OS ČMS) and the Christian Trade Union Coalition (KOK).