Collective labor relations in Czech public administration in an era of austerity

Abstract

Industrial relations in public administration are under severe pressure across EU countries. Government priorities shifted towards fiscal consolidation with consequences for employment and labor relations. The paper deals with collective labor relations in Czech public administration and explores whether and how the institutions of social dialogue have moderated the impact of public expenditure reductions on industrial relations. Austerity measures of the Government include: the cuts are normally imposed rather than agreed with the unions; the mechanisms used to cut pay have almost always been decided on centrally; the cuts are linked to reform of the pay system; cuts seem to be the first round of cuts as it is judged to be insufficient; elimination or reduction of variable pays, benefits and other indirect personnel costs; attempts to increase wage gaps between the higher paid and the lower paid, although the budgets are cut. The major findings based on observations, data mining, and statistics analyses show that social dialogue in public administration was not applied as a method of weakening of austerity measures in 2008-2011.