Suchergebnisse

"Following the coming into force of the new Social Dialogue Act in 2011, the Romanian collective bargaining system has fundamentally changed due to the restructuring of the levels of collective bargaining and the definition of the representativeness criteria. The collective agreement is the central institution of the collective labour law, the existence or non-existence of it, the content of the agreement being of a real interest for the enforcement of employees' interest. The new regulation significantly weakened the bargaining power of the social partners, which very soon led to a drastic reduction in the number of the concluded collective agreements.
In our study, we try to point out the problematic issues of the Romanian regulation related to the collective agreement, anticipating at the same time the possible new perspectives opened up by the attempt to amend the law."

The legal relationship between civil servants and the state, is not governed by the theory of sovereignty, which is relevant in the outer relationships between the state and its citizens, though it has some, limited effect on the inner relationships between the civil servant and the state organ, as well. The inner relationship falls into the category of "dependent work" and therefore civil servants must enjoy the employment rights generally applicable to employees with some alterations. Among such rights, two are investigated more closely in the paper: protection against unjust dismissal and collective rights of workers (right to organise, right to bargain collectively, and right to strike). In 2010 the Hungarian state modified its regulations on civil servants and introduced dismissal without notice referring to the argument that the parties of the legal relationship must be treated equally and because the civil servant can resign from its position without notice, the same right should be enjoyed by the state, as well. The Hungarian Constitutional Court and European Court of Justice nullified this law because of violating the right to work, the right to human dignity, and the right to hold public positions. The regulations on collective rights of civil servants have been systematically violated by the Hungarian legislator since 1992, when the first regulation on civil servants passed. Until 2011 the right to organise has been enjoyed without disturbance by civil servants but since than the state has organise the Bar of Hungarian Civil Servants into which all civil servants are obliged to enter. Because the Bar has rights which are usually considered to be union rights, therefore the Bar is a competitor of the civil servants' unions; consequently the regulations on the Bar violate the right to organise. The right to bargain collectively has never been enjoyed by unions of civil servants since 1992, despite such right is generally applied in developed countries app. since 1960-1970s and is also accepted by the international conventions on social and economic rights. The right to strike is also restricted by the Agreement on Right to Strike in Civil Service (1994) which prohibits the rights to strike far beyond the limits established by the Fundamental Law and the Act on Right to Strike (Act No. VII of 1989). Alternative methods of collective dispute settlement (mediation, arbitration) are also neglected by the Hungarian legal regime.

It was only recently, in the early 2000's, that the national councils were formed as institutions of policy making. The present paper concerns the second election of the national councils, which was held in the traditional way and not by means of electors. In 2010, the primary issue was whether and to what extent the institution is considered legitimate by majority of the Hungarians in Serbia. However, mitigating the collective social inequities of Hungarians in Serbia/Voivodina was not empha-sized. This inequity is partly due to the political deep structure of the representational form of rule. In other words, the dispute on the working of the MNT paralleled the current challenges of the Hungarian party-political system in Voivodina. The actual possibilities of minority policy making or the sensibly discussable circumstances of a given policy area were not really included. The discourse belonged to the dimension of politics rather than that of policies. Even the most skilled intellectuals were unaware of the ways how interests can be institutionalized through policy making. The debate addressed the elections of the MNT and not its procedures of functioning/competence/decision. The 2010 election facilitated the progress in the legality and legitimacy of the body but it also pointed out that, due to the short-term and tactical workings of daily political struggles, the political possibilities and articulations of minority interests will continue to be kept in the background.

During the past centuries many great philosophers and statesmen dreamt about the possible constitutional scope of exceeding Europe's political division and fulfilling the unified/united Europe. Most conceptions outlined the practical realization at a supranational level, although in the last decades there has been a greater emphasis on the sub-national (regional, micro-regional) level or else the "multi-level" Europe. Considering its scientific importance there has been less mention of the importance of the local, regional networks, however, their functionality –in the form of sister town connections –has been experienced by many towns in Hungary. In my thesis I intended to shed light on the fact that the sistertown connections –if being able to overstep the mayors and the local authorities' protocol meetings -and it can be the pledge of their viability, take a prominent part in framing the "bottom up" Europe. The personal, civil relationships, the common interests and the solutions to collective problems may all lead to a continuity in the increasingly "multigeared" European integration. In order to present the subject matter I selected the analysis of sister town connections related to the county town, Zalaegerszeg. My research questions were as follows: to what extent the sister town connection of Zalaegerszeg has changed in terms of geographical and content orientation, what elements of networking, independent from any political orientation, have been used, how the intensity fluctuation of the connections can be explained. The conclusion of my research is that the citizens, the civil organisations and the local authority of Zalaegerszeg, whose number of sister towns –fourteen –is greater than the Hungarian average, build their sister town connections in a conscious way, meanwhile integrating them functionally and successfully at a local level into the network of international connections.