The role of social partners in re-structuringin Hungary

The number-one objective of the employees’ representation organisations and of the trade unions is to offer and create jobs in the extracting industries. The mining industry has always been and is still characterised by the following: after a mine is exhausted, production shall have to be started elsewhere. It has always been a common practise that workplace changes appeared also within the mining sector, but in those days, mineworkers got another mining job instead of the lost one. However, after the process of mine closures new jobs have to be created, thus employment shall be guaranteed outside of the mining industry. In this case, the interest representation function of the trade unions can only be successful if re-training, training, the extension of skills and the possibility for adult learning are all assured. In those cases when the jobs that cease to exist either due to the exhausted mines or the altered or transformed needs for the raw material in question making extraction unprofitable result in the necessity for re-structuring.

It is the trade union that, in close co-operation with the employers, should assess the expected economic effects, and the possibilities to preserve the jobs and grant job security helping also this way the members and the parties represented thereof. This vision can orient the employees to plan their individual career. It is very difficult, almost impossible to plan if the jobs are permanently „floated”, and if the workers do not have any idea about how long they can assure decent living for their families from the job taken by him/her. For this very reason, the number-one objective of the Trade Union of Mining Workers (BDSZ) was to create security and to avoid the development of hopeless situations in the course of re-structuring. This is true even in those cases, when the mining job was terminated due to different constraints. For this reason, during the first phase in our co-operation with the employers our task was to assess the possibilities for shorter- or longer-term employment at every workplace during our site visits, because the carbon-dioxide quota, the sulphur dioxide emission and the liberalised electricity market represented new challenges for the mining industry.

The first step in our co-operation with the employees was to define, in the new market environment, the realistic chances for the operation of the mines. The second step, where the social partners can co-operate, is to preserve through joint argumentation those jobs and workplaces that can be operated in the long run and without subsidies. We have mutual interest in it. In this area, the Hungarian social partners have co-operated with each other by means of permanent dialogues both at the level of workplaces and the sector. The third step shall be taken if restrictive measures are necessitated, in order to guarantee that these measures shall be taken in a humane manner and by giving more to the workers than legally necessary. In this process we succeeded to reach an agreement with both the employers and the government on the improvement of the conditions for retirement, to improve, at least a little bit, the institutional framework concerning the exemption by age and to assure those one-time subsidies needed for the re-start that will promote relocation or finding a new job.

In this respect, however, co-operation with the employers was not so extensive, but we succeeded to reach a good and proper agreement with the government. Concerning the workplace-related aspects of re-structuring, the improvement of the population-preserving capacity of the settlements in question is a strategic objective. However, this objective can only be achieved, if new jobs are created in the affected regions and if these newly created jobs are capable to assure at least the same income and the same living conditions that were granted by the former mining ventures. In Hungary, in accordance with the European trend and practise, the process promoting the implementation of best practises and the creation of jobs in the mining villages has already started. As a result of this process, new jobs will hopefully be created. This also gave an impetus to the reduction, to a minimum level, of unemployment in the mining villages (for example: at Dorogon and Tatabánya, where coal mining used to be predominant).

Based on their joint practical experiences and their history for co-operation the social partners can also transfer work culture and the culture of co-operation, as it is quite likely that in the given regions the very same persons will be the managers who used to be managers in the previous mining enterprises and the employees may also remain the same. The collective agreement is a significant aspect of this co-operation as in the course of re-structuring it was the collective agreement that gave a kind of security to the workers by security against dismissal, or – probably – by increasing the amount of indemnification for dismissal. Consequently, the collective agreement is the extra, manifesting itself in everyday life that can assure for the employees the minimisation of defencelessness and the creation of a more foreseeable vision. Consequently, this is the most important document in the co-operation of the social partners, because it gives back the humane nature of the workplaces, guarantees workplace security and a good chance to preserve the jobs.