Peace and war in collective labor relations

Citation

(2011), "Peace and war in collective labor relations", International Journal of Accounting & Information Management, Vol. 19 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijaim.2011.36619baa.023

Peace and war in collective labor relations

Article Type: Abstracts From: International Journal of Accounting and Information Management, Volume 19, Issue 2

While, from a certain point of view, social peace concept is wider than the mere absence of conflicts, from another point of view social peace may be permanent, even when a conflict of interests is registered. Recently, social dialogue has no longer an exclusive role of (re)establishing social peace. However, the main objective of social dialogue remains social peace, and the main source of social peace remains social dialogue. The relation between employees and employers is still developing between peace and war. The paper attempts to analyze the concept of social peace, within the context of European social model, and to identify the rather rigid Romanian rules that may prevent or postpone the achievement of a balance between security and flexibility and of a sustainable social peace. Indeed, unlike other legal systems, where the distinction between conflicts of rights and conflicts of interests, albeit theoretically acknowledged, is not relevant in practice, this distinction is fundamental for the German-inspired Romanian system. Social peace is regarded as mandatory as long as a collective contract is in force, therefore any kind of strike or collective action is forbidden as long as no conflict of interests arisen. Such a conflict is dependent on the very moment of negotiating a new collective contract. The paper analyzes the Romanian solution and attempts to identify the relation between such a legislative option and the establishing of social peace. Is the mere prohibition of social actions during the existence of collective contract the way to achievement of social peace, or it should rather be a voluntary process? Moreover, the prohibition of strikes during the existence of collective contracts is in fact in line with the ILO requirements? The answers are searched in the sensible relation between peace and war during nowadays labor contracts. The author is trying to find practical solutions, in order to harmonize the Romanian system to the general European approach.

Keywords: Labor law, Social peace, Social dialogue, Strike

Raluca DimitriuThe Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania