In accordance with legal norms, collective agreements are concluded for a specific period. The period of legal validity of the agreement is indicated in the text of the documentation. Acts of law stipulate that the maximum validity period of a collective agreement cannot be more than 36 months. However, there is the possibility of extending cooperation on the deal. How the collective agreement can be extended will be described in the material.
Methods for extending the collective agreement
The legislation specifies several options for extending the collective agreement. They are presented:
- formation of a new agreement;
- drawing up an additional agreement to the act that is in force.
Most often, the simplest method is the formation of an additional agreement. This paper must reflect the period during which the document will be valid. It is worth noting that the period cannot exceed more than 36 months. The data that should be in the original contract is also reflected.
This applies to data of the parties, including the number and series of passports, job titles and other information. You must indicate the date on which the agreement was drawn up and the day on which the act comes into force. When forming this act, the provisions of the rules in force within a particular enterprise are taken into account. Regarding additional Agreement also applies to the rules on registration.
It is important to note that the updated conditions must be agreed upon by all participants in the labor relationship. If even one citizen is against the new conditions, they will need to be reviewed and only then formalized.
https://youtu.be/wLJunebrkY4
How many times can a collective agreement be extended? Jurisprudence
The Labor Code of the Russian Federation pursues the main goal of social partnership: ensuring the coordination of the interests of workers and employers, as well as monitoring the implementation of the accepted collective conditions.
By establishing these rules for action, the legislator will ensure the continuity of collective contractual regulation of social and labor relations at the organizational level.
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Duration of the collective agreement: for how long is the collective agreement concluded?
This document contains mandatory sections: Typically, the agreement consists of the following information: According to the wishes of the parties, the content and number of points may differ, but it is important that all demands and proposals are justified.
Procedure for extending the collective agreement
If all parties to the agreement have accepted the innovations, then it is permissible to carry out the process of prolonging the act in force at the enterprise. However, it will be possible to implement this process only on the condition that this decision is made at a general meeting of the parties to the agreement.
To give the voting results legitimacy, it is required that no less than half of all employees of the enterprise, namely 51%, vote for this decision. Only those employees covered by the agreement are taken into account. In general, the sequence of actions can be called the following:
Article TCRF 43. Validity of the collective agreement
Commentary on Article 43
1. The general rules for the validity of a collective agreement are determined by ILO Recommendation No. 91, which establishes that: 1) any collective agreement must bind the parties that signed it, as well as the persons on whose behalf it was concluded (employers and workers bound by a collective agreement must not include terms in employment contracts that contradict the provisions of the collective agreement); 2) provisions of employment contracts that contradict the collective agreement must be considered invalid and automatically replaced by the corresponding provisions of the collective agreement; 3) provisions of employment contracts that are more favorable to workers than the provisions of the collective agreement should not be considered contrary to the collective agreement.
2. The validity period of the collective agreement is determined by the parties, but cannot exceed three years. As a general rule, a collective agreement comes into force on the day it is signed by the parties. It may come into force on the date established in the collective agreement itself (as a rule, this is established when a new collective agreement is concluded during the period of validity of the previous collective agreement).
In contrast to the previously effective Law of the Russian Federation “On Collective Bargains and Agreements,” which allowed the validity of a collective agreement even after the expiration of the established period until the conclusion of a new collective agreement, the Labor Code determined that upon the expiration of the period for which the collective agreement was concluded, its validity is terminated.
The parties, however, have the right to extend the collective agreement for a period of no more than three years. Such extension of the collective agreement is carried out by agreement of the parties, for which the parties need to conduct collective negotiations. The number of extensions of the TC collective agreement has not been established. Therefore, it is quite realistic that the parties will repeatedly extend the validity of the same collective agreement, conducting appropriate collective negotiations for this purpose.
3. Legislation of the 1990s. allowed a situation where several collective agreements could be concluded in the same organization, each of which was valid for certain employees of the organization (as a rule, employees united in various trade union organizations). However, at the same time, the collective agreement lost the position of a legal act regulating social and labor relations on the scale of the organization, which distorted the meaning of collective regulation of labor at the enterprise. In addition, when implementing several collective agreements containing different provisions, practical difficulties arose in the form of competition between agreements and the threat of discrimination against workers based on the principle of belonging to a specific trade union that concluded an agreement on less favorable terms.
The most effective regulator of labor relations at the local level may be a collective agreement, a party to which is the collective of workers as a whole, and the specific interests of individual professional groups are taken into account in the annex to a single collective agreement. Obviously, the opposite decision was previously made by the legislator on the basis of the right of each employee representative to conduct independent collective bargaining and to conclude an independent collective agreement. True, the consequence of this decision was the differentiation of working conditions, based only on the membership of workers in various trade union organizations. At the moment, the collective agreement applies to all employees of the organization, individual entrepreneur, and the collective agreement concluded in a branch, representative office, or other separate structural unit applies to all employees employed in the corresponding department.
4. Since the obligations under the collective agreement arise directly from the employer, the fact of termination of the employment contract with the head of the organization who signed the collective agreement does not affect the validity of the latter. The collective agreement also remains in force in the event of a change in the name of the organization or its reorganization in the form of transformation.
5. The issue of the validity of a collective agreement is resolved differently in case of reorganization in other forms and a change in the form of ownership of the organization. In these cases, the collective agreement continues to be in effect only for a limited time, after which it is terminated early.
When reorganizing an organization in the form of a merger, annexation, division, or spin-off, the collective agreement remains in force throughout the entire period of the reorganization. Upon completion of the reorganization, the collective agreement is terminated.
In the event that a change in the form of ownership of an organization occurs, the validity of the collective agreement is limited to a period of three months from the date of transfer of ownership rights. The moment of transfer of ownership is determined by the moment of its state registration (Article 223 of the Civil Code). Upon expiration of the specified period, the collective agreement is terminated.
The establishment of a limited validity period of a collective agreement when changing the form of ownership of an organization seems to us extremely controversial, based on the fact that the new owner, as a general rule, acquires the organization with all its rights and obligations. However, with regard to the execution of rights and obligations arising from a collective agreement, the legislator establishes the inapplicability of this general rule, which seems insufficiently justified.
At the same time, the continuation of the collective agreement for exactly three months from the moment of transfer of ownership rights is associated with a three-month period for conducting collective negotiations to conclude a collective agreement. When either party puts forward an initiative at the beginning of collective negotiations regarding the conclusion of a new collective agreement or the extension of the previous collective agreement, immediately following the transfer of ownership rights, continuity of collective agreement regulation can be ensured.
The situation that arises during the reorganization of an organization should be considered similarly. Any of the parties has the right to initiate the procedure for conducting collective negotiations to conclude a new collective agreement or extend the validity of the previous one. At the same time, it seems unrealistic to extend the validity of the previous collective agreement when carrying out reorganization in the forms of merger and accession. We base this conclusion on the fact that in these cases there is inevitably an expansion of the scope of the collective agreement, its extension to workers previously covered by another collective agreement or who were outside the scope of collective agreement regulation. When carrying out reorganization in these forms, it is advisable to talk about concluding a new collective agreement.
6. Taking into account the freedom of the parties to choose the subject of negotiations and the procedure for conducting them, it should be recognized that collective negotiations on the conclusion of a new collective agreement may end with a decision to extend the validity of the previous collective agreement. The opposite situation is also possible: the end of negotiations on the extension of the collective agreement with the conclusion of a new collective agreement.
7. If an organization is liquidated, then the collective agreement is valid for the entire period of liquidation and terminates at the moment of liquidation of the organization. The liquidation of a legal entity is considered completed, and the legal entity is considered to have ceased to exist after making an entry to this effect in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (Article 63 of the Civil Code). The order of satisfaction of employee claims is determined by civil law. In accordance with Art. 64 of the Civil Code, workers’ claims for wages and severance pay are satisfied in the second place, claims for other payments (additional compensation, social benefits) - in the fourth place.
Comments to the Labor Code of the Russian Federation
Minutes of the meeting
Legislative acts do not provide for a separate form for creating a protocol. However, when drawing it up, you will need to take into account the general established rules. Including, the act reflects:
- act number;
- the day on which the approval procedure was carried out;
- title of the documentation;
- the purpose of drawing up the specified act (the name of the company and the number of employees in it are stated, the provisions of the contract that have been changed, as well as the new period of validity of the contract);
- the position of the persons who sign the agreement.
At the end the date is affixed and sealed with the seal of the company.
How to draw up an additional agreement
An additional agreement on the extension of a collective agreement (a sample document can be found below) is the most convenient way to extend this document in an organization. The unified form is not approved at the legislative level, so it is compiled in a free format. The agreement (after signing by the parties) must be sent for registration to the social security authorities.
The document must indicate the following:
Link to the renewable collective agreement.
Indication of representatives of the parties.
Name of the legal entity.
The period for which the contract will be extended.
The date on which the document comes into force.
The document must be certified by personal signatures of representatives of the parties. Stamped upon availability.
Order to extend the collective agreement
When drawing up an order, you need to take into account the rules applicable to similar documentation. It is important to note the period during which the agreement is valid. It cannot exceed three years. For this reason, the formation of additional agreements for just such a period.
The renewal of the certificate is carried out only after all employees have expressed their consent. In a situation where the period is less than a year, it will be necessary to obtain written consent from each employee.
Initiative for drawing up additional agreements can be demonstrated not only by the company's management, but also by employees. The registration process is allowed when using notifications sent to the employer. In addition, employees can write a statement. The act specifies the basis on which it was developed.
For what period is the collective agreement concluded?
A collective agreement can be concluded for a period of up to three years.
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Upon expiration of the collective agreement, the parties have the right to either extend its validity for another three years or enter into a new agreement.
The number of times such an extension is carried out is not regulated by law. Therefore, this can be done repeatedly.
The parties are obliged to comply with the terms of the collective agreement from the moment it comes into force.
These conditions are mandatory both during the entire term of the contract and in the event of its extension.
Procedure for registering a collective agreement
Once a decision has been made and expressed in writing, a registration process will be required. The same procedure is used as for the primary act. The procedure consists of submitting a certain package of documentation to the labor department. You need to visit the territorial division of the specified authority.
The day the act is issued is considered the date it is given legal force. It does not matter how long registration takes. The law states that registration papers must be submitted within a week from the date the document is generated. This process is of a notification nature.
For what period is the collective agreement concluded?
Article 43 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation establishes that a collective agreement is concluded for a period of no more than 3 years. This period begins to be calculated from the date of signing the agreement or from the date of its entry into force specified in the agreement. As we see, the minimum validity period of a collective agreement is not established by law.
The parties are given the right to subsequently extend the validity of the agreement for no more than three years. However, the Code does not indicate how many times this period can be extended, and does not contain a prohibition on its multiple extension. Thus, the maximum duration of the collective agreement is limited only by the condition that it must be renewed at least once every three years. This cannot be done automatically. At the same time, the procedure for extension is not established by labor legislation.
In this situation, based on Art. 42 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, which provides that the procedure for preparing a draft collective agreement and its conclusion is determined in accordance with labor law by the parties themselves, we conclude that the procedure for extension, like the rest of the terms of the collective agreement, can also be established by the parties. If the parties have not provided for such a procedure, you can use the procedure for concluding an agreement provided for in Art. 42 Labor Code of the Russian Federation.
Automatic renewal
The current legal acts do not cover the issue of automatically extending this act. This indicates that participants can use this option. To use this rule, it should be noted that it must be specified in the agreement itself. This clause helps to avoid conflicts regarding the validity period of documentation.
In a situation where the text does not indicate the possibility of using automatic extension, it will not be possible to use it. Such provisions apply until adjustments are made to the collective agreement.
When using automatic extension, there should be no overlap of deadlines. When the parties formulate a new act earlier than the period until which the old one is valid, the previously valid agreement will cease to be valid on the day the new document is executed.
https://youtu.be/PQnUg6a5pfE
Features of the renewal procedure
When extending a collective agreement, it should be taken into account that such a mechanism has a number of its own features:
- it is necessary to choose the option that will be used for the extension - either by re-signing the existing collective agreement (if no changes are made to it, then a simple re-signing without convening a meeting of employees is sufficient), or by drawing up and subsequently signing an additional agreement;
- It should be taken into account that the signed additional agreement, like the collective agreement, comes into force from the moment of its signing;
- can be extended by signing an additional agreement several times until the conditions contained in the collective agreement lose their relevance.
