III. Labor unions’ goals
On the other side, nobody doubts that the role of current LU is not to support the regime and acting as an artificial and subordinated organization of the regime of one party. So, what are the areas of interest and the goals of the current LU? As a deputy of KOZ for Labor Unions and for communication with nongovernmental institutions Mr. Habšuda said[4], the primary goals were to improve the social situation, steady increasing of the real wages of the employees and fighting for their rights, e.g. shorter working time, less shifts, better working conditions, more days of paid holiday. To reaching their goals, labor unions use so-called “collective bargaining”. In this point it may seem as if the goal of labor unions are as said at HRM lecture (Stanislava Luptáková, PhD, 27.X.2003): “I. to give workers formal and independent voice in setting terms and conditions of their work, II. To improve job security of the workers, and III. To ensure better financial and non-financial rewards for employees.” However, in Príručka organizátora[5], it is written, that “” The primary mission of KOZ is to unify basic labor unions and unions of labor unions in order to protect the rights of Labor union members and to struggle for their economical, social, cultural, and other interests and needs, which are created by or co-related with their work.”
Among aims mentioned in the same source are also such issues as:
- Implementing democratic principles in the whole society
- Development of freedom of all citizens
- Forcing prospective state’s economic policy
- Measurements against all of the forms of discrimination
- Decreasing the rate of unemployment
- Creation of new working places and measurements to lower the unemployment rate and creating tools, which can ensure highest possible employment rate
- Enforcing “tripartite” system and principles of the social dialogue
- Enforcement of the labor unions’ rights and rights of employees in the labor law, in the social insurance and collective bargaining
- Enforcement of the safety and heath protection at work, permanent valorization of the labor value
We can clearly see that the range of interest of the Slovak labor unions is much wider than in other countries, especially if we compare it with USA. They don’t care a lot about the current economical situation of a company; they are ready to pursue their goals against interest of employer as well as against interests of government and its policy. On the other side, if labor unions are involved in almost all fields of public life and issues, will it not be on the expense of their overall success, lower their flexibility and retard their further development? How can they be successful with so many aims and such a complex program? Well, this is a good question. It seems that most of Slovaks are rather skeptic about the efficiency of labor unions in Slovakia, what we can see on the decreasing number of unionized workers, as mentioned above. Moreover, the social, legal and formal status of current labor unions in Slovakia is strongly affected by their mission, too. The wide range of goals forces them to search for partners and make agreements and compromises with other legal subjects. Therefore, although our labor unions declare themselves as strictly nonpartisan, they formally claim as well that they would support other legal subjects having common goals, especially political parties. “KOZ Slovakia cannot pursue its goals alone in the conditions of plural democracy. It has to look for allies. Allies of labor unions in the campaign for social justice can be such political parties and movements, which have similar program aims. ”[6] Good example might be the recent campaign for early parliamentary election and their official support of SMER as a political party and Ivan Gašparovič for president. Finally, according to claims of their representatives and their political, legal and social acts, we can sum the question of goals of labor unions in Slovakia in the way that Slovak labor unions see themselves as a civilian movement against all dangers in almost all the fields of public life.
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Piatok, 22. novembra 2024
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