Search

Search Results

• Theoretical issues of equal treatment in relation to the legal classification of labour law

  57-79

  István Herdon

  Dóra Takács

  Views:

  162

  There are many national and international academic debates on the classification of labour law. On the one hand, labour law can be categorised as private law when we consider the establishment of employment relationships. The legal basis for an employment relationship is exclusively the employment contract, thus labour law belongs to classical private law. On the other hand, the content of the employment relationship can be determined not only by the employment contract, but also by a number of other rules. These norms typically have public law content and, as so-called public law elements of labour law, seek to limit the contractual freedom of the parties. The existence of public law elements is typically justified by the legislator on the grounds that there is subordination between the parties in the employment relationship, so that the contractual balance of rights, which is characteristic of private law, is shifted in favour of the employer. The presence of elements of public law, and in particular the requirement of equal treatment, is intended to redress this imbalance in employment law by limiting the contractual freedom between the parties. In the present article, we examine in particular whether the presence of public law elements gives labour law a specificity of its own. In addition, focusing on the principle of equal treatment, we examine how the prohibition of discrimination in labour law and classical private law can be interpreted and whether this general behavioural requirement is capable of redressing the balance that has been shifted between the parties. Finally, we ask the rhetorical question: if the requirement of equal treatment is capable of redressing the balance, why is there a need for additional public law elements in labour law?

• Possibilities of workplace mediation in the European Union

  1-13.

  Aron Balogh

  Views:

  377

  The world of labor market and industrial relations is a field where conflicts and disputes are inevitable characteristics of the operation, regardless of the form of employment. Also, labor disputes appear both from an individual aspect, where the disputants are the employer and the employee, and in a collective respect, where the disputes take place between the employer(s) and the collective of the workers, typically represented by an employee organization (union) or a works council. 

  When a conflict or a dispute cannot be resolved through negotiation, the law offers dispute resolution mechanisms for the participants. Therefore, several legal mechanisms have been evolved in order to resolve disputes, starting from the classical form of litigation, where a court determines the end of the dispute by its judgement, and other alternative forms of dispute resolution, such as arbitration, mediation and conciliation, where the parties can reach a decision or a settlement outside of the judicial system of the state.

  EU Member States have introduced various legislative rules for labor dispute resolution covering all manner of individual and collective disputes. ADR schemes are also supported by the ILO, as the ILO Recommendation No. 92 (1951) suggests that voluntary conciliation should be made available to assist in the prevention and settlement of industrial disputes between employers and workers. Within the aegis of the European Union, several instruments have emerged with the attempt to elaborate the basic principles for the operation of ADR schemes in the context of cases between businesses and consumers. The Directive 2013/11/EU on alternative dispute resolution for consumer disputes (the “ADR Directive”) and Regulation (EU) No 524/2013 on online dispute resolution for consumer disputes (the “ODR Regulation”) ensured that consumers could turn to quality alternative dispute resolution entities for all kinds of contractual disputes with traders, and established an EU-wide online platform for consumer disputes that arise from online transactions with traders.

  Workplace mediation is widely and successfully utilized in the USA for solely employment purposes both in the private and the public sector. Also, in the United States is a “employment at will” doctrine prevails, that basically means – unless stipulated to the contrary by the parties – the employment relationship can be terminated with immediate effect without any justification (just cause), thus workers do not have access to legal remedies as in the EU where the statutory laws provide a broad protection against arbitrary or unjust termination. Mediation, however, provide an effective solution for employees and workers, even if situated outside the protective scope of labor law.

  While the role of customer/consumer ADR and mediation is increasing throughout the whole European Union, workplace and employment mediation still constitutes a “grey zone”.  In many of the legal instruments of the EU and also in several products of the national legislations, consumers and workers are treated with the same legal awareness, thus protective laws compensate their weaker position in their legal relationships, but as far as the utilization and access of dispute resolution schemes are concerned, a significant but not always reasonable differentiation can be detected. Also, while mediation is an available tool for individual employment matters, still has not been utilized considerably, and remained an instrument only to resolve mostly collective conflicts. Therefore, the aim of this paper to present various styles of mediations from a comparative perspective, to express their biggest advantages and to highlight the areas where mediation could be more suitable to use in the context of the individual disputes of the workplace.

• Unilateral determination of working time in the effective regulations of labor law

  63-80

  Szabó Mercédesz

  Views:

  236

  In most cases, law does not differentiate between various people in equal-level positions of a contract; during sales, the State has the same rights and obligations as the contracting private person.  Labor law is a specific field of law where one of the parties that are theoretically on equal level – i.e. the employee – is actually in a somewhat subordinated and obviously more exposed position. In the light of the foregoing, it is especially notable that there are some fields of labor right where the third way applies; parties are not equally positioned in terms of power; however, it is not the employee who gets legal assistance for the equality of opportunities, but the law itself supports their disadvantaged position.  Such situation is called the legal situation of unilateral power, and we aim to study to what extent it is present in Hungarian labor law and how advantageous or disadvantageous this it to the parties.  The field of law where one is likely to detect the traces of unilateral power is the legal regulation related to working time, which, therefore, is the subject of this study, and the definition of working time will hereinafter be looked into from the aspect of the employer’s unilateral right to establish employment. Unilateral power is basically not typical to be enforced in labor law, and therefore, working time-related regulations – that belong to the employer’s own discretion – form an exception in such respect. At the same time, the option of flexible work order provides an exception from the superiority of unilateral power, and therefore it is actually an exception to the exception. Such complex system, however, provides the option to make sure whether the enforcement of unilateral power is constructive in labor law, or it would be more reasonable to apply a more balanced system such as the principle of the employer’s ultima ratio as suggested by Guy Davidov. While noting that according to those described above, flexible work order poses some potential risks, too, in our opinion, it would be more efficient and social to set up a consensus-based system, which would also allow us to satisfy our obligation of European Union legal harmonization. Hungarian legislation, and labor law legislation in particular has numerous tasks to do in order to promote the solution of socio-economic problems, as well as to fulfill our obligations related to legal harmonization; in our opinion, the conclusions above confirm that making working time regulations more liberal is one of the major tasks of legislation.

• A polgári jog és a munkajog összehasonlítása az alapelvek tükrében

  13-21

  László Bodó

  Views:

  174

  Without abstract

• On certain interpretation issues of Hungarian collective labour law

  77-87

  Imre Szilárd Szabó

  Views:

  63

  The primary and outstanding legal policy objective of Act I of 2012 on the Labour Code (hereinafter Mt. with its Hungarian abbreviation) is to extend the opportunities of collective autonomy and the regulatory role of agreements concluded between entities subject to collective labour law. With a view to this, the content of the legal institution has been significantly altered, establishing a „complex system” of specific rules that are instrumental in generating a system. The Labour Code is very often characterised as an especially complex piece of legislation, a „law intended for lawyers”, though it is one of the laws that are widely referred to and used, applied by people other than lawyers, including the classic actors (entities) of collective labour law. Below I will underline five regulatory „contradictions” in the area of collective labour law, which due to the lack of sufficient clarity and various ways of possible interpretation might become the source of legal disputes and conflicts of interest between the entities of collective labour law. These critical observations and proposals - which are far from being exhaustive - are related to the conclusion, amendment and termination of collective agreements, and the exercise of certain trade union rights.

  Thus, in the paper I will analyse the issues related to the conditions of collective agreements concluded by multiple employers from the perspective of workers (trade unions); the contradictions of the situation of the trade unions becoming entitled to conclude collective agreements subsequently; the possibilities for a trade union losing its capacity to conclude collective agreements and its consequences for the workers (the rate of unionisation dropping below 10% at the employer concerned); the problems related to the various levels of hierarchy in trade union structures; and finally, I will discuss issues of establishing and calculating the working time allowance, the grounds for and problems of its application.

• Comparison between the requirements of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Hungarian judicial practice in terms of equal treatment and/or the breach of thereof in the field of labor law

  Edit Duró

  Views:

  238

  Employment and occupation are crucial to ensuring equal opportunities for all and in large measure contribute to the full participation of citizens in economic, social and culture life. However, many cases of discrimination have been identified in the field of employment and the labour market.

  In this study I try to examine how the equal treatment works in the EU Law and Hungarian national law, and I try to present the case-law of the European Court of Justice and the Hungarian Courts in this area. The first part of the study deals with the definition of key concepts (direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, harassment), and include its legal background – with respect to the directives of the European Parliament and the Council, and the Hungarian legislation. The second part tries to describe the legal concept of indirect discrimination, mentioned as justification (statutory derogation, objective justification). And finally I try to present the special burden of proof, which is used in discrimination cases.