The subject of Master thesis – the development and role of collective agreements as the source of law in the framework of Lithuanian labour law. This postgraduate thesis consist of three chapters. The conceptions of the source of law and the collective agreement are presented in the first chapter. Functions of the collective agreement, its historical origin are being discussed here as well. The source of law has many means. According to natural law the source of law means the source of standarts of law and the source of knowledge of law. According to positive law doctrine the source of law is the form of expressing of law. The author tried to analises collective agreement from these two points of view. It is also defined social and law conceptions of the collective agreement. In social sense collective agreement means compromise between two groups of society – employers and employees, achieved by collective bargaining. In law sense it is body of contract laws which regulates labour conditions. The collective agreement has these funktions – lagal (or regulative) and social (peace keeping function, informative function, educative function). But main function is regulative function. In the second chapter the author analyses the development of collective agreements in different periods of Lithuanian history. The author also presents the reasons, which cause that the collective agreement, as the sourse of labour law, is not popular. The third chapter deals with the role of... [to full text]

Diss. Stockholm : Stockholms universitet, 2006.

It is common in today’s society that a business transfer occurs. Collective agreements hold a strong position in Swedish labour market which means that the majority of companies around Sweden have collective agreements. I therefore intend to study how collective agreements are applied during a business transfer. My study is mainly focusing on the legal framework in 28§ MBL since it regulates how collective agreements are applied during a transfer. The study is focusing on four different situations when a business transfer occurs. The situations that are treated is following: The transferor has a collective agreement but not the acquirer, the acquirer has collective agreement but not the transferor, both the acquirer and the transferor are bound by the same collective agreements or bound by different ones. The Council directive 2001/23/EG prescribes in article 3 that an automatic transfer of all rights and obligations is made when a business transition occurs. This rule has been implemented through the 6 b § LAS Furthermore, the safeguarding of the employees’ rights when it exists a collective agreement are regulated in 28§ MBL. 28§ 1 st MBL precludes an automatic transfer of the regulations in the transferors collective agreement into the acquirers organisation unless the acquirer is bound by a collective agreement. If the acquirer is bound by a collective agreement, they are still obligated to apply the transferor collective agreement during one year. This is just a couple of examples of how collective agreements are regulated during a business transfer. The applications of collective agreements can be complex depending on the situation. I have compared all of the situations above in an analysis in chapter 4.

The Swedish labour market has developed a system were the relationship between employers and employees is in the largest extent regulated through collective agreements. A principle of the Swedish model has long been that the government should not interfere in wage setting and that the regulation on the wage settings is provided for the organisations on the labour market, however, a system of collective agreements that are generally applicable are very common in many European countries. The significance of this system is that the collective agreement is binding on all parties on the labour market which includes, both employers and employees that are members and also non-members in a trade union. A method with doctrinal and labour law in context has been used. This essay has examined how an imposition of the collective agreements with a general effect could affect the protection of workers in the Swedish model, and what kind of consequences such imposition could contribute to. Collective agreements are very important for the Swedish model and the employer has an obligation to apply conditions of collective agreements on employees that are non-members in a trade union or members in a different union. Employers who do not apply these conditions to workers can be guilty of violation of the collective agreement. In Sweden, collective agreements have a very high coverage despite the absence of collective agreements that are generally applicable. The high coverage is important because collective agreements offers workers a safer protection with more rights and opportunities to influence their workplace. In practice, it is also established that collective agreement in a workplace should be the central, and that it should have a normative effect on workers. However, the employer can bypass a few rules, which may affect workers negatively because they do not get equal rights or an equally strong protection. In order to maintain the Swedish model, a high number of trade union memberships are necessary. On the other hand, it has been shown that the number of trade union memberships has been decreased which can contribute to a diminished position on the labour market for workers and the trade unions. An adoption of collective agreements with a general effect as a complement to the system we have today would have been a good solution to include more employees. However, it can also be considered as an invasion on the Swedish model.

This PhD dissertation studies how market structures and economic incentives transform heterogeneity at agent levels into unequal economic outcomes. The first chapter studies the economic incentives that lead a country to specialise its production in specific segments of a supply chain, and how these incentives transform heterogeneity at the productivity level into wage differences between countries. This chapter presents an innovative framework that incorporates production networks to the Ricardian trade model. It describes the price formation mechanism that occurs along supply chains and how it induces countries to focus on the production of specific goods. Moreover, the model highlights the role of the network structure in the determination of prices, and uses it to explain how changes in the productivity of a country have consequences in the production decisions and wages of the other countries that produce goods in the supply chain. The second chapter studies the effects that the heterogeneity of income flows has over the implementation of collective agreements. Collective agreements are the primary mechanism by which communities cope with market failures. However, the lack of enforcement mechanisms generates coordination challenges. This chapter presents a theoretical framework that studies how inequality among individuals affects the participation incentives of the individuals and explains why agreements that balance the rent-seeking behaviour of wealthy individuals with the redistribution interests of the poor reduce the adverse effects of heterogeneity, and can even use it to create more robust agreements. The third chapter studies heterogeneity at the level of academic journals. This chapter models the interaction between authors and journals as a platform market and uses this model to explain how general interest journals compete against field-specific journals. The model provides new insights into the way in which general interest journals link the different publication incentives of journals across fields. The theoretical results explain why general interest journals tend to attract higher quality publications and how changes in the publication capacity of a journal, or the volume of research in a field, can affect the quality of ideas published in both field-specific and general interest journals. Finally, this chapter applies the previous theoretical results to understand how the Top 5 journals in economics obtained their central role, and how their influence has changed between 1980 and the present.

<p>According to § 2 of the swedish Competition Law it does not apply to agreements between employers and employees regarding salary and other working conditions. In the EC-treaty there is no such exception, but the European Court of Justice has established one. The purpose of this paper is to investigate if there are any differences between the two exceptions and, if so, how those differences effects the possibility to challenge swedish collective agreements from a competition law standpoint.</p>

According to § 2 of the swedish Competition Law it does not apply to agreements between employers and employees regarding salary and other working conditions. In the EC-treaty there is no such exception, but the European Court of Justice has established one. The purpose of this paper is to investigate if there are any differences between the two exceptions and, if so, how those differences effects the possibility to challenge swedish collective agreements from a competition law standpoint.

Den Svenska modellen har gått från en omfattande lagregleringsreform på 70-talet, till ett stadigt tillstånd där bland annat rättigheter så som förenings- och förhandlingsrätt, rätten till information samt fredsplikt skyddas genom kollektivavtal. Sveriges medlemskap i Europeiska unionen innebär att staten har överfört beslutsmakt till unionen och dess institutioner, vilket gör att unionen har en överstatlig karaktär där unionsrätten går före nationell rätt vid en konfliktsituation. Genom Sveriges medlemskap i Europeiska unionen har den Svenska modellen och framför allt kollektivavtalens ställning fått en annan betydelse. En av orsaken till detta att de svenska kollektivavtalen inte uppfyller unionens krav vid implementering av direktiv, då direktiven skall omfatta alla arbetstagare och arbetsgivare. Kollektivavtalen i Sverige binder endast de parter som avtalet är slutet mellan. Då kollektivavtalen inte kan användas som ett implementeringsinstrument måste Sverige implementera direktiv från unionen genom lagstiftning, som då inbegriper alla parter på arbetsmarknaden. Det medför en ökad lagstiftningsprocess, som innebär att beslutsbefogenheterna tas från arbetsmarknadsparterna och ges till staten. Inom många länder i Europa används så kallade allmängiltiga kollektivavtal. Dessa kollektivavtal förklaras allmängiltiga av en myndighet i berört land, och inbegriper alla på arbetsmarknaden inom exempelvis en region. Denna typ av kollektivavtal återfinns inte Sverige. Det är dock en av mina slutsatser i denna uppsats, att använda sig av allmängiltiga kollektivavtal i Sverige skulle kunna innebära en upprätthållning av den Svenska modellen och kollektivavtalens status.

We live in a global world characterized of economic internationalization. It imposes new demands on our way of managing our world. The Swedish labour market is not an exception. Critics believe that the Swedish model is in need of change. In the context of posting of workers the interplay between social rights and the freedom of providing services gives birth to problematic fields of social dumping. Both Norway and Sweden face similar challenges on the internal market. Nevertheless, both countries have applied different strategies in their work to counteract social dumping.    This paper aims to compare the Swedish- with the Norwegian model and display how both systems works to prevent social dumping. Further the paper will examine if the Norwegian system with universal collective agreements could be implemented in the Swedish system without creating friction in view of the Swedish model. By using a comparative method with sociology of law the paper brings understanding to the reader for the complex interaction between society and legal systems. This is key to fully grasp why Sweden and Norway has chosen different legal paths.

Collective bargaining is one of the methods of reciprocal communication between employers and relevant trade union, which solve wage or salary and other rights in labour-law relations. Collective agreement is the purpose of collective bargaining. Its content and observance is significant part of relationship between employers and employees. Process of collective bargaining, closing collective contracts, solving collective disputes, process during strikes and lock-outs is described in the Act No. 2/1991 Coll. The aim of my master thesis is to analyze legal regulations of social dialogue, content of collective agreements and show some real examples. I also describe all feasible solutions of collective disputes, which are results of disagreements between contracting parties by closing or default of collective agreement.