Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2024, published 113rd ILC session (2025)

Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98) - Hungary (Ratification: 1957)

Relationship between collective bargaining and the legislation. In its previous comment, the Committee noted the Government’s indication that with the adoption of the 2012 Labour Code (hereinafter the Code), collective agreements may derogate from the provisions of the Code not only to the benefit but also to the detriment of the employee, except for the minimum guaranteed standards from which derogations are not allowed (section 272(2) of the Code). The Government further indicated that, as a general rule, in the absence of any provision to the contrary, the collective agreement may derogate from the provisions of the Second (the Employment relationships) and Third (Industrial relations) Parts of the Code. The Committee therefore requested the Government to provide: (i) the list of issues from which the parties can derogate to the detriment of workers and the list of issues from which the Code does not allow the parties to derogate; and (ii) detailed information on how section 272(2) of the Code was being applied and its impact in practice.

The Committee notes that the Government: (i) confirms that, as a general rule, collective agreements may derogate from Parts II and III of the Code as the Labour Code did not seek to lay down minimum working conditions; (ii) indicates that the Code distinguishes between cogent rules, which bar any derogation from the Code, a few “relative dispositive” provisions that permit parties to a collective agreement to make deviations in a certain direction, usually in favour of workers; and “absolute dispositive” provisions that allow derogations from the rules in any direction, including to the detriment of the workers involved; and (iii) indicates that on issues such as overtime or the amount of severance pay, the derogations to the legislative provisions to the detriment of the worker can be done up to a certain limit. While the Committee notes that the Government provides a list of cogent rules (which bar any derogations from the Code), it notes that the Government does not provide the requested information on the protections of Parts II and III of the Code that can be derogated to the detriment of the workers and no information on how this possibility is applied in practice. The Committee recalls that the general objective of the Convention is to promote collective bargaining with a view to agreeing on the terms and conditions of employment that are more favourable than those already established by law and that it has considered that while targeted legislative provisions covering specific aspects of conditions of work and providing, in a circumscribed and reasoned manner, for the possibility of their replacement by means of collective bargaining may be compatible with the Convention, legal provisions providing for a general possibility to derogate from the protective provisions of labour legislation by means of collective bargaining would be contrary to the purpose of promoting free and voluntary collective bargaining established in Article 4 of the Convention. The Committee therefore once again requests the Government to provide a detailed list of the Labour Code provisions from which collective agreements can derogate to the detriment of workers along with detailed information on how this possibility is applied in practice and on its impact on collective bargaining.

Public Education Teachers. The Committee takes note of the new legislation indicated by the Government, the Act on the New Career of Teachers (Act No. LII of 2023), which establishes the employment relationship in public education and modifies the legal status of teachers in the country from public employees to public education employees. The Committee requests the Government to provide information on the specific measures that are applicable, both in law and practice, to ensure that teachers under this new designation of public education employees enjoy all the rights and guarantees set out in the Convention.