Issues Concerning the Regulation of Collective Agreements in Romania

Abstract

Following the coming into force of the new Social Dialogue Act in 2011, the Romanian collective bargaining system has fundamentally changed due to the restructuring of the levels of collective bargaining and the definition of the representativeness criteria. The collective agreement is the central institution of the collective labour law, the existence or non-existence of it, the content of the agreement being of a real interest for the enforcement of employees’ interest. The new regulation significantly weakened the bargaining power of the social partners, which very soon led to a drastic reduction in the number of the concluded collective agreements.
In our study, we try to point out the problematic issues of the Romanian regulation related to the collective agreement, anticipating at the same time the possible new perspectives opened up by the attempt to amend the law.