| The Impacts of European Labour Standards on an Accession Country [WORD, 140KB] [WORD 140KB] | | While the new member states in Central Eastern Europe make all the legislative efforts and institutional developments, there remains the question whether they are able to pursue the European policies in the field of employment and social affairs, and to what extent the newly transposed legislation affects everyday workplace practices. This paper examines the transplantation of the Acquired Rights (Transfers of Undertakings) Directive and the Working Time Directive from this perspective. First it gives a critical analysis of the evolution of the relevant Hungarian labour law, then presents court cases and workplace experiences. The paper tries to point out the typical situations in which the laws are not adhered to. Yet, the author argues that there are palpable results in the approximation of the labour law and jurisdiction to the EU Directive, even if the diffusion of lawful solutions, especially in SMEs and in everyday shop-floor practices will take a lot of time. As far as the industrial relations impacts of the new rules on organisation of working time are concerned, quite many employers seem to make use of the new possibilities of flexible working time organisation through concluding collective agreements. Nonetheless, ‘internal numerical flexibility’ was introduced primarily to meet employers’ needs and agreements were left with hardly any room to provide employees with some sort of security or to reach a balance between work and family life. Neither the government’s intention nor the outcome of collective bargaining accommodates the ‘flexicurity’ approach of the European employment strategy. As a policy recommendation, the paper argues that the governments in the ‘new’ member states should not delegate the responsibility of implementing European policy objectives to social dialogue and collective bargaining without developing national strategies, building supporting institutions and enhancing the economic actors’ awareness and capability to conduct meaningful negotiations in line with the desired policy objectives. |
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