Dear colleagues,
I submitted to the company a proposal to change the KPD with effect from September 1, 2022, as follows.
The OÚP hereby submits a cover letter to the documents in which they propose an adjustment of the conditions under which they are currently willing for the purposes of the collective agreement for 2022 to agree to the scheduling of working hours in the form of working time account within the meaning of § 86 et seq. Act No. 262/2006 Coll., the Labour Code, as amended (hereinafter referred to as the “Labour Code” and the “Working Time Account”). Specifically, these proposals relate to a potential further settlement period from 1st September 2022, as the second settlement period of the KPD agreed in the current collective agreement is currently coming to an end.
In this regard, the OÚP assumes that at the collective bargaining on 15 December 2021, has been agreed that the Working Time Account would be maintained under the current conditions, valid until 31 August 2023. At the same time it was agreed between the parties that there will be a “discussion on setting up the KPD from 1 September 2022 in order to improve it”. Therefore, please see this cover letter and the proposed changes to the documents as an impulse to start this discussion, because as follows, the OÚP has comments on the current form of the Working Time Account that do not directly affect flexibility, and therefore consider the following points OÚP as still open.
- General explanation of the adjustments
In principle, the OÚP are willing to discuss the introduction of a Working Time Account for the next period from 1 September 2023, with the proviso that even within the period from 1 September 2022, at least the most important comments should be settled within the discussion agreed between the two parties. However, the practice in the first two balancing periods since its reintroduction has brought practical difficulties and inconsistencies in social dialogue in interpreting some of the practical aspects involved. In particular, the OÚP encounters a very controversial reduction in performance bonuses by possible surcharges to the fixed salary, for which, in their opinion, there is no legal basis. On the other hand, the OÚP are aware that there are many interpretations of the Working Time Account for the purposes of practice. On the other hand, the mission of the OÚP is ideally to minimize such interpretations, based on previous experience, which was far from only positive.
For this reason, the OÚP considers it necessary to clarify the relevant documents [in particular the relevant article of the collective agreement governing the conditions of application of the Working Time Account (hereinafter the “draft of Collective Agreement”) and the Wage Policy Directive in the sections (hereinafter referred to as the “draft of Wage Policy”)]. We also consider it necessary for guarantees against possible changes to the Employer’s internal regulations to the detriment of employees, if they affect the Working Time Account, to be accepted during the period of application of the Working Time Account.
In the attachment, we would like to send you the draft of Collective Agreement and the draft of Wage Policy in the change monitoring mode. Both of these documents capture the changes proposed by the OO, including the accompanying commentary. The text of the relevant article of the collective agreement captures the changes compared to the collective agreement effective until 31 December 2021. The vast majority of changes concern the Working Time Account – in the case of the Wage Policy Directive, however, the OO proposes other minor changes to be discussed, just in order to avoid different interpretations of some institutes related to remuneration (especially in relation to the notion of “collective barriers on the part of the Employer” ). According to the OÚP, the related uncertainty is to the detriment of both parties to the social dialogue.
For completeness we add, that the OÚP does not propose changes in the sent working time schedule, as no provision of this directive directly affects the conditions of the Working Time Account or the rights of employees working in the Working Time Account.
- Specific proposals incorporated in the Draft of Collective Agreement and the Draft of Wage Policy
In this section we briefly summarize what changes the OÚP are proposing compared to the current period, and for what reasons:
2.1. Avoidance of credits / reductions in regularly provided wage components in the Working Time Account:
It is well known to the employer that the OÚP has long disagreed with one of the reasons for the reduction of the performance bonus, which occurs when the Employer is obliged to provide the employee with a supplement to a fixed salary corresponding to 85% of average earnings. According to the current wording, the collective agreement stipulates that employees belong to all these wage components side by side (especially tariff wages, attendance bonuses, performance bonuses, guaranteed bonus, variable bonus).
The reduction of the performance bonus was only regulated in the Wage Policy Directive, which de facto reduces some employees’ rights that have already been established on the basis of a collective agreement. These situations occurred simply for those employees who earned “too high” average earnings, which the OÚP consider, among other things, a big injustice. The rules for determining average earnings are strictly mandatory and given by the Labour Code, and the employee will do nothing about how the average earnings will turn out. Some employees are thus de facto “punished” for what the binding legislation looks like.
Therefore, the OÚPs are proposing clarifications in the new collective agreement so that this reduction will no longer be possible for the next period, by emphasizing the right to the provision of all regularly provided wage components in the Working Time Account regime. The adjustments in the Wage Policy Directive then logically correspond to the fact that it omits the possibility of this reduction, including adjustments to other related matters (ie to indicate, for example, that an account salary is paid and not an advance on the account salary).
2.3. Guarantee before additional amendments to the directives after signing a new collective agreement
Internal regulations are issued unilaterally by the Employer, and are only discussed with the OÚP. Of course, the OÚP does not doubt this mechanism, without this option the Employer would not have the possibility of effective management. On the other hand, OÚP are forced to respond to the employer’s practice of formulating a collective agreement in general, and then elaborate the details in unilaterally issued internal regulations, without OÚP being able to actually influence their content. However respectable this approach is (on the one hand, the collective agreement should be comprehensible to all employees), it puts employees in considerable uncertainty.
Even if the Employer complies with the OÚP proposal to change the Wage Policy, there is nothing to prevent him from changing these conditions again after the (irrevocable) approval of the Working Time Account. The OÚP therefore proposes put a paragraph in the relevant article of the new collective agreement concerning the conditions of changes in the employer’s internal regulations with regard to the Working Time Account. Shortly, the terms of the Working Time Account (especially the remuneration of employees included in this type of working time schedule) cannot be changed without the consent of the OÚP, regardless of whether they are enshrined in the collective agreement, or the employer’s internal regulations. The proposal therefore concerns the introduction of the condition of consent to the change of the Employer’s internal regulations in the passages in question. Without this guarantee, employees run the risk of being dependent on the Employer’s interpretations in subsequent settlement periods, which they do not want to admit.
2.4. Severance pay for employees included in the Working Time Account
As part of the current collective bargaining, it has been preliminarily agreed between the parties that transfers of plus and minus shifts will also be agreed for the next period. However, this is relatively disadvantageous for employees – the possibility of transferring plus shifts, for example, means that the employee will not receive overtime pay when settling plus shifts. Therefore, in the relevant passage concerning termination compensation for an employee included in the Working Time Account, the OÚP propose that the severance pay should always be increased by three times the average monthly earnings compared to employees who are not included in the Working Time Account.
The increase should therefore apply to all “scopes” of employment compared to the current situation, where for employees working for the Employer for at least 3 years, the amount of severance pay is exactly the same, regardless of whether it is included in the Working Time Account, or not. Therefore, these employees are not compensated in any way for KPD, when the OÚP insists for the next period to eliminate this unsatisfactory situation.
2.5. Other partial adjustments in the draft of Wage Policy
Based on the current experience of the OÚP, they also propose cosmetic amendments to the Wage Policy Directive outside the Working Time Account. In particular, it does not agree that the concept of a “collective obstacle on the part of the employer” for the purposes of reducing the performance component of wages should be left to the discretion of the Employer. Simply put, the OÚP do not want the Employer to formally do not “determine” the obstacle, even in the case of a collective obstacle on the part of the Employer. This was because the arguments against the OÚP were purposefully argued in the negotiations on the first payment of the guaranteed bonus for 2020.
Thank you very much in advance for taking note of all the above arguments for the draft of Collective Agreement and the draft of Wage Policy, and we look forward to your comments. In case of any questions or the need for further justification, we will of course be available for you at any time. Currently, the requirements set out above are a prerequisite for us to agree on the Working Time Account for the next period as well, when it is currently a problem for employees rather than anything else. However, the OÚP does not oppose the negotiation of a specific form of conditions.
Regards
Independent labour union for maintenance and other workers
Petr Bíba, Chairman