In the resolution, the Presidium of CESI, on behalf CESI’s members across Europe and in support of CESI’s Hungarian member MKKSz, demands that the Hungarian government no longer pursues the intended measure in a way that will effectively weaken trade unions in the country.

It further urges the European Commission and the Council of Europe to take decisive action to ensure that no measures are taken that will backlash on the implementation of the European Social Charter and the EU’s Council Recommendation on strengthening social dialogue and the binding new EU directive on adequate minimum wages.

Specifically, it expects from the Hungarian government:

• not to undermine trade union life.
• to uphold mechanisms which allow effective collective bargaining between trade unions and employers.
• to guarantee de jure and de facto the respect for both European legislation and International Labour Organization (ILO) covenants in the field of labour law and workers’ representation.
• to abstain from breaching the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Collective Bargaining Convention (No. 154), which expressly states that in order to facilitate collective negotiations, measures must be taken so that the continuation of collective negotiations will not be hindered by the absence of applicable procedural rules, or their insufficient or inappropriateness – which the measures intended by the Hungarian government would clearly bring.

The Presidium of CESI expects expressively from the Council of Europe:

• to ensure that the Hungarian government respects the European Social Charter which, in its version of 1996, affirms in Art. 5 that national governments should “undertake that national law shall not be such as to impair, nor shall it be so applied as to impair” the freedom of workers and employers to form organisations for the protection of their economic and social interests and to join those organisations.

• to verify that the Hungarian government acts in line with the Hungarian act ratifying the European Social Charter, which stipulates that all parties should undertake that no national laws – neither by themselves nor through their application – curtail the employees’ freedom of association.

It expects from the EU institutions:

• to ensure that the Hungarian government respects the Treaty of the European Union (TEU), which states in its preamble that all Member States have “confirmed” their attachment to “fundamental social rights as defined in the European Social Charter”.

• to ensure that the Hungarian government properly implements EU secondary legislation that aims to strengthen (and not weaken) the right of association, trade unionism, social dialogue and collective bargaining, based on policy objectives set out in Art 151 and 153 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). This concerns above all the recently adopted Council Recommendation on strengthening social dialogue in the EU and the recently adopted EU directive 2022/2041 on adequate minimum wages in the EU, which is binding for all Member States and which requires that Member States “promote the building and strengthening of the capacity of the social partners.”

The full resolution is available here.

Background

On August 7 2023 the Cabinet Office of the Hungarian Prime Minister headed by Antal Rogán submitted for public consultation a legal proposal to change the current system of trade union membership fees from employers to trade unions.

The measure would allow public employers to exempt themselves from the obligation to deduct membership fees pay membership fees back to the trade unions.

In practice, the change would result in trade unions having additional administration and operational burdens. The change would therefore have an opposite effect to the ‘freedom of bureaucracy’ principle – which it is supposed to address.

Trade unions representing civil servants, defence personnel, public healthcare workforces, and public education employees would be concerned.