Collective Bargaining Agreements in the Visegrad Countries: Wages, Working Hours and Labour Conditions

Abstract

This report gives a brief overview of 40 selected collective agreements from the Visegrád countries. 10 agreements were collected from each country within the commerce, construction, manufacturing and public sectors. The report starts with a theoretical summary on the bargaining systems of the Visegrád countries focusing on their main commonalities, differences, strengths and weaknesses. Partly due to their state socialist heritage when collective bargaining was not at all present or was not fulfilling its true functions and the ensuing economic transformation process, each country has developed a similar collective bargaining system in the last three decades which can be characterised by decentralisation, a declining power and density of trade unions and a gradual erosion of impact of collective bargaining on working conditions. The latter is observed by the slow but steady decline in so-called higher-level (multi-employer or sectoral) bargaining in each country (with the potential exception of Slovakia).