Should a collective agreement contain provisions on pay? This is one of the questions that has arisen following the entry into force of the new regulations on collective agreements.
In an article on Prawo.pl, Renata Bugiel comments on the subject and explains that the new Act gives the parties to the agreement greater freedom in shaping its content than the previous regulations.
“The parties may therefore conclude an agreement covering only benefits, health and safety rules or arbitration procedures, completely omitting pay scales and length-of-service allowances. And this is precisely where a systemic problem arises.”
This does not, however, mean that remuneration issues lose their significance. On the contrary – in practice, they remain one of the most important areas of negotiation between the employer and the trade unions.
“In practice, this would mean that when an employer enters into a collective agreement and wishes to avoid the risk of a dispute over the validity of the remuneration regulations, it is advisable either to include a minimum set of remuneration rules within the agreement or to explicitly stipulate in the agreement the relationship to the remuneration regulations and their continued validity.”
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