Collective agreement as a mechanism for establishing enhanced occupational safety standards: doctrinal analysis and industrial enterprise practice

Abstract

The study aims to conduct a comprehensive doctrinal analysis of the legal nature and functions of the collective agreement as a mechanism for establishing occupational safety standards exceeding the statutory minimum at industrial complex enterprises in Ukraine, as well as to develop science-based proposals for improving the relevant legal framework and collective bargaining practice.

The methodological framework comprises: the comparative legal method (analysis of domestic and foreign experience of collective bargaining regulation of occupational safety); the formal legal method (interpretation of current labor legislation and ILO international labor standards); the systemic-structural method (study of the collective agreements place in the hierarchy of labor law sources); the legal modeling method (development of optimal constructions of collective agreement provisions); and the empirical method (analysis of actual collective agreements in the mining and metallurgical industries).

It is established that the collective agreement implements the favor laboris principle in its collective dimension, performing regulatory, protective, incentive-based and communicative functions. The practice of leading mining and metallurgical enterprises regarding inclusion of enhanced occupational safety guarantees in collective agreements is systematized. Five systemic problems of collective agreement regulation are identified: declarativeness of provisions, lack of monitoring mechanisms, inequality of negotiating positions, gap between norm and practice, and insufficient sanctions. A five-block conceptual model for the occupational safety section of a collective agreement (normative, procedural, financial, control and liability blocks) is developed, and a comparative analysis of the Swedish, German, French and Polish models is conducted.

A set of legislative amendments is proposed: establishing a mandatory list of occupational safety issues as the subject of collective bargaining, raising the level of sanctions for non-compliance with collective agreements, granting real supervisory powers to trade union commissions, and introducing mandatory independent auditing of collective agreement compliance at high-risk enterprises. The research results may be used in law-making and law enforcement practice.