Tallinn, 22 – 23 October 2012. In Tallinn, on the 22 and 23 October 2012, social partners of the European audiovisual sectoral social dialogue committee organised a conference on social dialogue in the audiovisual sector in Estonia, Latvia, Poland and the Czech Republic.
Rounding off a series of national workshops, the conference provided an opportunity to measure both positive aspects of social dialogue in the region as well as difficulties social partners are encountering. Although the crisis is affecting all the sector, national pictures show significant differences. In Estonia and Latvia, negotiations have resulted in satisfactory collective agreements, mainly due to the fact that unions are well organized and that partners are “open-minded”. On the other hand, Czech and Polish unions are facing great difficulties. In Poland in particular, the public audiovisual sector is hit by a massive drop in resources and unions are suffering from significant fragmentation.
The issue of union representation in the commercial sector was clearly stated, and participants insisted on the poor ability of unions to meet the expectations of non-salaried workers who have no access either to social protection or the benefits of collective agreements. In this case agreements are considered incompatible with the principle of free competition between “service providers”. In particular, in the Czech Republic, performers have no union representation because, since the sector only employs non-salaried persons (hence without an employment contract), the government considers that unions do not have any legal basis for representing this category of workers.
Social partners have prepared a proposed joint declaration which indirectly refers to the right to collective bargaining for all workers, including those who are most exposed. The text is still awaiting to be officially agreed by employers.