INTAS Seminar »Trade unions and the state in post-socialist countries«
Moscow, April 14-16 2005
TRADE UNIONS IN SLOVENIA
(Miroslav Stanojević and Alenka Krašovec)
Passport of the trade union movement
In Slovenia trade unions’ membership was declining gradually for approximately ten years. Until the mid 1990’s the decline was very slow: in 1989 trade unions density rate was about 70%, and five years later, in 1994, it was 60%. At the beginning of the second half of the 1990’s the rate rapidly declined by almost 20%. The decline stopped in 1998 at slightly above 40% and is still, according to the last public opinion surveys, at the same level (Stanojević and Omerzu, 1994, PORC 1989-1998, N=2040 (89), 2078 (91), 1049(92), 1044(93), 1037(94), 1016 (95), 1024(96), 2007(97),1008(98) ).
There are six trade union confederations in Slovenia: the Free TU (ZSSS), the Independent TU (KNSS), the PERGAM, the Confederation 90 (K-90), Alternative and Solidarity. First four confederations were formed at the beginning of 90’s. The last two are relatively new being formed almost ten years later.
From the end of the 1980’s the ’old reformed’ Confederation of Free Trade unions of Slovenia (ZSSS) undoubtedly prevailed within the Slovenian trade unions scene. In the 1990’s it covered between 70% and 50% of the total unionised population. Its share within the population was highest at the end of the 1980’s and at the beginning of the 1990’s, later it approached 50% and today is at the same level. Industrial workers are the prevailing members of that union. Three other smaller confederations that occurred at the beginning of the transition (KNSS, Pergam in K-90) also mobilised industrial workers, but - as PERGAM was anchored in one sector (the paper industry) and K-90 in the Primorska region, at the beginning only KNSS directly targeted the same population as the ZSSS. In the first half of the 1990’s KNSS and PERGAM covered approximately 20% of the unionised workforce. KNSS membership gradually declined during the 1990’s, but PERGAM’s membership was stable and even slightly increased.
In the second half of the 1990’s the growth of the autonomous unions (mostly) from the public service sector accelerated. According to the public opinion research conducted in 1998 these unions covered almost one third of the total trade-unionised workforce. Compared to the other unions these autonomous white collars' interest organisations did not have serious membership losses. From the mid 1990’s on they have kept membership at the approximately same level i.e. improved the relative share of its members in the unionised population (Sources: PORC 1992, 1994, 1995 in 1998; Stanojević and Omerzu 1994)
At the beginning of the 1990’s unionisation among employees from all main educational categories was high (being even higher among those most educated). As early as 1992 the trend of slow unionisation decline among less educated and fast de-unionisation among more educated categories occurred.
This uneven de-unionisation manifested as exceptional, really intensive change of the Slovenian union membership educational structure.
Table 1: Educational structure of Slovenian union membership in 1989, 1992 and 1998
Education / 1989 / 1992 / 1998Primary school / 21.3 / 24.3 / 29.8
Vocational school / 28.8 / 31.3 / 40.8
High school / 31.6 / 29.6 / 22.5
University / 18.3 / 14.8 / 6.8
Source: PORC 1989, 1992, 1998; Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, Results of Surveys 1996 (Remarks: changes in union structure is approximate as the data are derived from the data on the educational structure of employees for 1995 and the level of union membership by category in 1989, 1992 and 1998).
In 1989 approximately 50% of the unionised workforce had primary and vocational education. Ten years later the share of these less educated in the union membership structure reached 70% (PORC 1989,1992 in 1998; SORS 1996; see also: Stanojević, 2000: 93).
The evidence suggests that Slovenian trade unions changed significantly in the 1990’s. From the ‘starting’ organisation that unselectively represented all ‘working people’, Slovenian unions transformed into organisation representing less formally educated, non-managerial employees i.e. ordinary manual workers.
The development of the former state functions of the trade unions
The role of trade unions in former Yugoslav system was framed by the following contextual features: firstly, relatively developed (for contemporary ‘communism') market self-regulation implying in comparative terms atypically high level of companies’ autonomy; secondly, self-management i.e. involvement of employees into all forms and phases of the managerial decision making process (including strategic decision making); and, thirdly, continuous workers strike activity consisting of relatively frequent small strikes (of usually most deprived groups of physical workers within companies) that marked practically all phases of Yugoslav ‘communism’. [1]
In the 1950’s the Yugoslav system mowed away from the command economy regulation. The nature of the political exchanges and key cleavages in the Yugoslav society strongly deviated from the pattern of the exchanges and the cleavages that existed in the contemporary Soviet type societies. In the Soviet type societies workers and managers had visible antagonist in central plans i.e. ‘communist’ state, who effectively integrated/homogenised them. In the former Yugoslavia, where central plan did not exist and where market forces were triggered, the cleavages were more complicated. From the late 50’s and early 60’s the ‘market question’ sharply divided the Yugoslav ‘communist’ elite into the market and anti-market oriented camps (see: Stanojević, 2003). Simultaneously deprived workers from less successful companies, being threatened by the market pressures, strongly opposed to the managers and linked up to the anti-market oriented faction of the political elite into the anti-reform interest camp. In more successful companies internal relations were essentially more cooperative. Workers and managers were mutually strongly integrated there. These relatively well paid groups of employees, who had basically positive experience with the market reforms, supported the market faction within the political elite, and directly or indirectly, through the market faction, opposed the anti-market i.e. anti-reform oriented interest block/camp.
In the 1980’s Yugoslavia entered protracted political and economic crisis. Within this contex the Slovenian transition was decisively triggered i.e. got an early decisive impetus in 1986, when the market oriented (“social democratic”) faction in the local (Slovenian) communist party took the power. This was followed by the first free elections in 1990 folowed by two years long prevalence of the right wing centre parties (1990 – 1992) and, after 1992, the prevalence of the left-centre coalitions (until 2004). Generally speaking, the prevalence of the left-centre political coalitions was the main feature of the trade unions' political environment in the 1990's in Slovenia. The second relevant dimension of the trade unions’ environment was workers population. From the beginning of the second half of the 1980’s, parallel to the escalating crisis and disintegration of the former system, the number of unsuccessful companies and deprived workers population started to grow rapidly. This growing deprived population, being directly threatened by the forthcoming reforms, expressed its dissatisfaction as openly as it used to do, but this time massively. Strike activity increased sharply. It reached a peak in 1987 when, according to incomplete evidence, approximately 1,700 strikes occurred in Yugoslavia (of these, 300 in Slovenia). Social discontent had risen toward critical levels (Lukan, 1992).
The early changes in the outlined context caused trade unions' initial changes in second half of the 1980’s. The former secure position of the single union (ZSS), which was traditionally strongly integrated into the regime, was questioned; a previously routine identification of the employment status with the ‘automatic’ inclusion into the trade union membership was not self-evident any more. At the end of the 1980’s at least one fifth of the working population was not in the ZSS membership i.e. was not trade unionised any more. ZSS faced the identity problem. It urgently needed serious redefinition of its own role.
In the second half of the 1980’s the striking workers triggered changes in the ZSS structure at the micro level. In successful companies the union’s routine marginal role did not change significantly. But in unsuccessful companies, where adversarial relations escalated, the shop stewards position was radicalised.
Institutions of social partnership
In 1992 the transformational depression in Slovenia reached its climax. After that the economy recovered and from 1994 had relatively high growth rates achieving “… one of the highest average economic growth rates among the transition economies (…) and it has had by far the least volatile growth during the transition process. Moreover, this stable and reasonably high growth rate was achieved without any major macroeconomic imbalances over the 1990s” (Šušteršič, 2004: 400).
This economic success has been strongly connected to the very gradual, cautious market reforms that were systematically applied in Slovenia during the 1990’s and, parallel to these processes, theoretically resumed under the now widely accepted notion of ‘the Slovenian model’ i.e. ‘the gradualist approach’ to the market reforms. For Slovenia, who “was not only the most developed part of the former SFR Yugoslavia and indeed of the whole socialist block, but also the one where economic reform in the pre-transition period had gone the furthest”, the gradual approach was natural choice (ibid, 402). During the 1990’s the governmental policies were consistently focused to the macro economic stability that simultaneously efficiently sheltered national economy. Monetary policy, using managed exchange rate floating, limited massive capital inflow and successfully secured macroeconomic stability; together with the complementary industrial policy it helped to the most vulnerable parts of the economy to survive.[2]
In spite of gradual, slow transformation of the economy the structure of the Slovenian labour force changed significantly in the 1990’s. Labour force was intensively reduced during the transformational depression in the early 1990’s. According to the contemporary research findings (for the 1991-1993 period) the reduction reached 12%. In ten years period, from 1988 to 1998, the number of persons in employment in Slovenia fell by more than 200,000, from 831,000 in 1988 to 592,000 in 1998 (Ignjatović, 2002:179).
During the ten years the workers population was reduced by almost 40%. One out of four employees was in ‘workers’ occupation category during the 1990’s. Among those who lost their jobs or were moved to the non-active population (approximately 200,000 persons), one out of two was from workers occupational categories (plant and machine operators, assemblers end elementary occupations) meaning that reduction of employed population was reached mostly on workers population detriment. As the workers (especially low educated, worst paid from traditional, labour intensive sectors of the economy) were strike prone and highly unionised, the policy makers simply had to respect their interests.
Development of the Slovenian industrial relations system, being situated into the above described social constellations could be divided in two main periods.
The first period begins in the year 1992, which was a first significant watershade in Slovenia's 'post-communist' development. In this year when the transformational depression touched the bottom, powerful strike wave re-emerged and reached the peak. Exactly in that year, when the depression was deepest and the strike wave highest, the electoral body moved towards the left-centre. Liberal democrats (LDS) took the leading role in Slovenia.
From that point during the 1990’s the political exchanges between (left-centre) governments and organised economic interests have been a permanent feature of the Slovenian transition.
Within the first period (up to the 1994) the political exchanges were highly pragmatic and weakly institutionalised. In that period the political elite was involved in intensive, explicit as well as implicit, dialogue with clearly expressed social discontent of core workers population. The political exchanges started with massive social transfers, mostly in forms of mass early retirement, later being combined and substituted by a wide definition of the unemployment status. Within this type of pragmatic exchanges also exceptional improvement of gross payments in 1993, which followed an extreme wage decrease in previous years, could be classified. All these exchanges were primarily focused on prevention and lowering of the social tensions, simultaneously securing the political support to the government.
The first strategic, symbolically most important political exchange between workers and the political elite was the Law on privatisation. The law was adopted in the ‘critical’ 1992. Strongly accentuating internal buy-outs in labour intensive sectors of the economy, the law literally promoted striking workers into the relevant co-owners of theirs companies. The immediate ‘anti-strike’ effect of the law, combined by the above mentioned wage increase in 1993, was significant. Indirect result of that first strategic exchange was less visible and more important: combined with other pragmatic political exchanges, the law on privatisation laid the foundations of the Slovenian transitional pattern. It triggered transformation of the strike wave into the industrial relations system, which was, atypically for other transitional societies, strongly accommodated to the employees’ interests. The result of these early, mostly pragmatic dialogues with workers discontent was strategic. The ‘transition’ into the socially acceptable type of capitalism started.
The second period of the political exchanges started in 1994 when the Economic and Social Council (ESC) was founded. After that the political exchanges got a form of more institutionally regulated tripartite dialogue.
The ESC was established by the first tripartite agreement on wages in the private sector (signed in 1994), that was followed by two broader agreements from 1995 and 1996.The agreements reconfirmed collective bargaining system as an exclusive and basic instrument of both the formation and the implementation of incomes policies and all the obligations and rights coming out from labour relations. Since then the parliament has also demanded that all the acts pertaining to the interests of the social partners have to be accompanied by the opinion of the tripartite body before entering the parliamentary procedure.
In Slovenia the social agreements covers all the important social and economic areas such as social policy, health and safety at work, employment and unemployment, competitiveness etc., but still the income policies remain the central issue. In the case when the partners could not reach a broader social agreement they normally at least agreed on the wage policy agreement.
From 1994 up to April 2003 all together three broader social tripartite agreements and five tripartite agreements on incomes policies were adopted in Slovenia.The last broader social agreement was signed in April 2003 for the period 2002-2005.
Within the ESC the partners regularly discuss proposals of all the new labour and other legislation concerning the interests of social partners. The proposal of a new Labour Code, which has been in force from January 2003, was exposed to a long debate. The proposal of a new law on collective bargaining and other systemic laws are regularly on the agenda of the ESC. The discussion concerning the new pension system absorbed a lot of the energies of the councillors and basically is still un-finished. This topic was on the Council’s agenda under the pressure of a deep pension fond crisis caused by mass early retirements at the beginning of the 90's. Due to the unions' opposition to some aspects of the pension reforms clearly expressed at the ESC, the radical privatisation of the pension funds did not occur in Slovenia (Stanovnik, 2002). ESC also finalised the new revised act on unemployment insurance from 1998. This act introduced some new, restrictive approaches towards the unemployed, but would be significantly more restrictive without compromises that were reached at the ESC. In addition to that the ESC also decisively influenced the formation and introduction of the minimum wage in Slovenia.
Natural, organic part of this structure, which has been relatively opened i.e. sensitive for the workers organised economic interests, was a highly centralised collective bargaining system. It consists of two general (for private and public sector), branch and companies’ collective agreements.
The two general collective agreements are the result of the dialog at national level conducted by the main trade union confederations, the national employers associations and the government for the public sector. The branch/sector agreements are negotiated by branch trade union organisations and corresponding employers’ associations. With the exception of companies collective agreements, all others are valid under the condition of registration at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. Thirty-eight branch collective agreements have been registered at the Ministry. Every year amendments (usually not very frequent) to these agreements are also registered.
The collective bargaining system in Slovenia is highly inclusive. Almost all of the total labour force is ‘covered’ by the provisions of collective agreements, at least with lowest standards defined in the general agreements.