Trade Unions Threaten Strike Over Collective Agreements Reform
Thirty-nine trade unions from northeastern Estonia are threatening the government with a general strike if an amendment to the Collective Agreements Act is passed in Parliament.
The unions are also demanding a pay rise for teachers, and more support for pensioners and the disadvantaged, ERR radio reported.
"We don't see any other option. The government has ignored ordinary protests,” said Aleksandr Startsev, the Ida-Viru County department head of the Trade Union Confederation.
However, the chairman of the Trade Union Confederation, Harri Taliga, said the Ida-Viru County appeal is too broad and that the issues it raises cannot all be resolved at once.
Startsev was, nevertheless, able to focus enough to say that the Collective Agreement Act was the most pressing issue at the moment.
The act currently says that the terms of collective agreements must continue to apply even once the contract has expired, until a new agreement has been made. Last week, Parliament passed the new amendment onto its second reading, finding that the current law, theoretically allowing the collective agreement terms to be binding for an indefinite period of time, is unconstitutional. Opposition parties opposed the motion.
Ott Tammik