Slovak Republic, EPSU Collective Bargaining News

The trade union confederations of the Czech and Slovak Republics – CMKOS and KOZ – have called national demonstrations on 8 October to call for action to tackle the cost-of-living crisis. They argue that their respective governments need to undertake urgent measures to support households in the face of soaring inflation and particularly high energy costs. They want to see increases in wages in general and particularly minimum wages and assurance that government budgets will include provisions to cover pay rises in public services.

The SOZZASS health workers’ union has expressed concern over the way that the health ministry is addressing health workers’ pay and its failure so far to undertake proper negotiations with the unions. In its latest announcement the ministry has indicated its willingness to increase pay for nurses and refers to bringing average nurses’ pay up from 89% to 100% of average earnings. While SOZZASS welcomes a commitment to increase pay for nurses it says that this should be as the result of collective bargaining and that all health workers deserve a pay rise.

The KOZ trade union confederation reports that collective agreements for state and public service workers have been negotiated for the period 1.1.2023-31.8.2024. Basic salary scales will increase by 7% from 1 January 2023 and by a further 10% from 1 September 2023. Amendments to higher-level collective agreements for 2022 provide civil and public servants with a one-off payment of €500 in August. Pay increases for health workers are still being negotiated. The latest collective agreements also include a range of social benefits, not least a reduction of working time for public employees

Civil servants and other public sector workers will get a 3% increase in pay as of 1 July 2022 and will also receive a one-off payment of €350 in January. In the second half of 2022, there will also be an extra day of paid leave. Although the increase is below the trade unions’ initial demands it is significantly better than the 0% offer that the government had made in the third round of bargaining.

Following the large demonstration in October in support of a pay rise for public service workers, unions are angry and disappointed that the government has failed to respond. Marián Magdoška, president of the KOZ trade union confederation said that unions were presented with the budget for 2022 a day before a tripartite meeting and realised that, despite promises from last year, it didn’t include any provisions to cover even a pay rise to compensate for inflation. The health union is also angry that in negotiations at the end of October the government was effectively blackmailing unions by

The KOZ trade union confederation organised a national demonstration in Bratislava on 27 October in support of the 13% pay claim by public service trade unions. The government has not offered any pay rise at all for 2022 and the unions are looking to ensure that workers are compensated for inflation, as energy and other prices soar, and for recent years when pay in the public sector has lagged behind increases in the minimum wage. KOZ also used the demonstration to draw attention to the impact of prices rises across the economy and to call for increases in pensions and other social benefits.

In the first of a series of three meetings over a thousand public service workers gathered in Košice to discuss pay in the public sector. The unions are calling for action on minimum salaries and a pay system that recognises workloads, levels of education and length of service of public service workers. Two further meetings are planned as part of this broad trade union consultation process - one in Banská Bystrica on 16 November and the final one in Bratislava on 23 November.

The KOZ trade union confederation is planning three events in three different cities in November to address major problems related to public sector pay. The confederation is calling on all its affiliates to support the initiative and discuss the way forward. KOZ argues that an unfair pay system, including pay rates that are below the national minimum wage is failing to ensure that public service workers are properly rewarded and means that many skilled workers are leaving to find better paid work elsewhere.

An analysis by the European Trade Union Institute shows that wage convergence between East and West in Europe was steady up until 2008. However, since then the trend has either stalled or gone into reverse. Taking national average pay as a percentage of the average across the pre-2004 EU15, Croatia and Hungary show the largest increase in the pay gap since 2008. There were also increases in Slovenia, Czech Republic, Poland and Romania.Most progress was made in Bulgaria but from a very low level (11.8%) to 17.7%, still less than a fifth of average pay in the West.

(June 2017) Public sector workers get a 6% pay rise this year and the same again next year, if the current economic climate is maintained. This agreement was promoted by the KOZ confederation and picked up by the ETUC Pay Rise campaign which also reported on the push for a higher minimum wage in the country.

EPSU has collaborated with the SOZ ZaSS health union in producing an overview of recent developments in collective bargaining in the health sector. The article provides some background on the key negotiations and the challenges faced in securing improved funding for the sector as well as better pay and conditions for the workers. The situation is similar to other countries in Central and Eastern Europe and also raises questions about the potential of general healthcare unions to work with other organisations in the sector, particularly unions representing doctors. [Read more at > EPSU (EN)-