Brief Description of Employees’ and Employers’ Associations
In Romania, employees’ and employers’ organisations are structured as private associations governed by the Law no. 367/2022 regarding the social dialogue. Every employee has the right granted by the Constitution and by the Romanian Labour Code, to constitute or to become a member of a trade union.
In order to set up a trade union there must be at least 10 employees within the same company or at least 20 employees from different companies from the same sector of activity. A person cannot be part of more than one trade union organisation within an employer at the same time. Certain categories of personnel, such as public officials, members of the military and members of certain government ministries, are not allowed to establish trade unions.
Employees’ and employers’ organisations are structured by level: starting from the company level, where there are unions as organisations; sectoral level where there are employers’ organisations and union federations; and the national level where there are employers’ organisations and union confederations.
Rights and Importance of Trade Unions
The representative trade union is entitled to receive from employers, any necessary information for the negotiation of the collective labour agreements and other agreements related to the employment relations. Since a union needs 35% of the company’s employees to be representative, and only a limited number of unions can reach the required number of members in order to become representative, Romanian law also allows non-representative unions and under certain conditions union federations that are representative at the sectoral level (representing at least 7% of the employees in the sector) to participate in collective negotiations at the company level.
The trade unions play a key role in collective bargaining, but they also have significant consultation and information rights. Also, based on a specific empowerment from their members, trade unions have the right to register petitions and to sustain their members’ interests before the local courts.
Types of Representation
If there are not any unions within the company and the company is one that needs to negotiate a collective employment agreement, employees have to appoint representatives for the negotiation.
Number of Representatives
There are no rules on how many representatives are to be appointed, but Law no. 367/2022 states that the employer and the employees agree on the number of representatives taking into account the number of employees (if the company has a large number of employees that perform various types of activities in different geographical areas, the number of representative will be higher). If there is no agreement regarding the number of representatives the number should not exceed 2 representatives, for employers with less than 100 employees, 3 representatives for employers that have between 101 and 500 employees, 4 representatives for employers that have between 501 and 1000 employees, 5 representatives for employers that have between 1001 and 2000 employees or 6 representatives for employers with over 2000 employees.
Appointment of Representatives
There are some guidelines regarding the appointment of representatives in Law No. 367/2022 that mentions that a initiative group can handle the election process by communicating and asking for assistance from the employer if needed. The employer cannot be involved outside the assistance requested by the initiative group in the lection process. The representatives have to have the vote of at least 50%+1 employees in the company.
Tasks and Obligations of Representatives
The mandate of the representatives is established during the appointment process and it is limited to a maximum of 2 years. The employees give their representatives mandate to participate in the collective negotiation on specific terms. The representatives will participate in the collective negotiations and sign the collective agreement, they are consulted during the process of drafting the Internal Regulations and they can fulfil any other activity that is not reserved for union organizations.
Employees’ Representation in Management
The representatives enjoy some of the rights that the representative unions have in gaining access to relevant information and being consulted in specific matters (such as when the employer wants to implement a new internal regulation), but they are not directly represented in the Management.
Other Types of Employee Representative Bodies
European legislation on works councils was transposed in Romanian legislation, but few companies actually have such representative bodies. The role of works council in the employer-employee relationship is reduced. Most of the rights that the works councils have involve only receiving information from the company on important matters.
Health and safety committees have an important negotiation role. The employer’s representatives and the employees’ representatives discuss and agree upon health and safety measures, but also on social and economic matters within these structures.
