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Estonia - Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining

Indicators

The following indicators should be considered when conducting assessments of compliance (click on links for details):

Legal Framework

• ILO 87 - Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (A-1)
• ILO 98 - Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (A-9)
• Rights of workers or employers to establish and join organizations of their own choosing without previous authorization (A-2)
• Restrictions on the ability of certain categories of workers to organize (and numbers of workers in each category) (A-3)
• Certain sectors where there is no right to organize (A-4)
• Forms of distinction or discrimination in the right to organize (A-5)
• Provisions that permit the government to interfere in freedom of association by workers or employers (A-6)
• Restrictions on political activities of unions or employers’ organizations (A-7)
• Protection of workers from discrimination if they join a union or participate in union activities (A-8)
• Protection of collective bargaining (A-10)
• Restrictions on the mechanism of collective bargaining (A-11)
• Categories of workers not permitted to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement (and numbers of workers in each category) (A-12)
• Certain sectors where there is no right to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement (A-13)
• Recognition of the principle of a strike as a means of action of organizations (A-14)
• Government restrictions on certain kinds of strikes (A-15)
• Government limitations on picketing or occupation of the workplace (A-16)
• Bans on employer lookouts (A-17)
• Workers’ ability to ratify or reject agreements reached by union leaders (A-18)
• Employers’ ability to dismiss striking workers or the hiring of permanent strike replacement workers (A-19)
• Requirements that workers join a given trade union as a condition of employment or that new workers be hired through a given trade union (A-20)
• Workers’ and employers’ organizations ability to affiliate with international bodies (A-21)

Government Performance

• Retaliation on union organizers and strikers (B-1, B-2)
• Government complaint process (B-3)
• Government interference in freedom of association (B-4)
• Independence of trade unions (B-5, B-6)
• Government actions to combat labor-related corruption (B-7)
• Labor Regulation Departments (B-8)
• Government supported worker education efforts (B-9)
• Government supported capacity-building efforts for government labor officials (B-10)
• Government actions to promote and disseminate best practices in labor-management cooperation (B-11)
• Government actions to hinder or facilitate labor-advocate NGOs and independent labor inspection (B-12)
• Government actions to enable utilization of domestic and international channels for violations and problems (B-13)

Overall Outcomes

• Union density (C-1)
• Frequency, length and person-days of legal strikes (C-2)
• Percentage of workers covered by collective bargaining agreements (C-3)
• Incidents of discrimination against union organizers, unions, or employer organizations (C-4)

Sources

International Sources

International Labor Organization

Information on ratification status, Article 22 reports and comments from the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations.

• APPLIS Database
• Committee Assessment of Source

This database contains information from governments, employers' and workers' organizations, that have a role to play under the Follow-up to the ILO Declaration and Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.

• Annual Review Database
• Committee Assessment of Source

As part of the Follow-up to the Declaration, the ILO Director-General submits a Global Report on one of the four categories of fundamental principles and rights at work to the tripartite International Labour Conference each June.

• Global Reports
• Committee Assessment of Source

Database of national labour, social security and related human rights legislation maintained by the ILO's International Labour Standards Department. Records in NATLEX provide abstracts of legislation and relevant citation information, and they are indexed by keywords and by subject classifications. Each record in NATLEX appears in only one of the three ILO official languages (English/French/Spanish).

• NATLEX
• Committee Assessment of Source

ILOLEX is a trilingual database containing ILO Conventions and Recommendations, ratification information, comments of the Committee of Experts and the Committee on Freedom of Association, representations, complaints, interpretations, General Surveys, and numerous related documents.

• ILOLEX Database of International Labor Standards
• Committee Assessment of Source

International Labour Organization

Industrial relations indicators include trade union membership, trade union density, and changes in trade union density. Table 1.2 includes data on Trade Union Density (%).

• World Labour Report 1997-98: Industrial relations, democracy and social stability: Statistical Annex

UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Provide statistics and information on economic and labor conditions, including laws and their enforcement governing wages, hours, and occupational health and safety and information related to discrimination and education.

• Country reports
• Committee Assessment of Source

United Nations

Includes State Party Reports and the Conclusions and Observations of UN Committees relating to the CCPR, CEDAW, CERD, CESCR, CMW, CRC.

• Treaty Body Database
• Committee Assessment of Source

National Sources

Government, Estonia

Links to Ministers and other useful information, available in English

• Government, Estonia, website
• Committee Assessment of Source

Ministry of Social Affairs, Estonia

Potentially useful information available in English

• Ministry of Social Affairs, Estonia, website
• Committee Assessment of Source

U.S. Government Sources

U.S. State Department

Section 6A covers "The Right of Association" and Section 6B covers "The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively

• Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
• Committee Assessment of Source

Nongovernmental Organizations

Confederation of Estonian Trade Unions

Potentially useful information may not be available in English.

European Industrial Relations Observatory

Under "Browse by Country" one can access a variety of documents and articles related to Estonia. The "2003 Annual Review for Estonia" lists the main developments in industrial relations and includes related articles on the subject.

Human Rights Watch

Country reports examine the most pressing human rights issues in each country. These differ for each country, as do the frequency of the reports for each country.

• Overviews of Human Rights Developments
• Committee Assessment of Source

Lawyers Committee for Human Rights

This database contains approximately 2,500 units of measurement on workers rights, extracted from approximately 100 public and confidential source documents including guidelines and questionnaires used by monitoring organizations, multinational corporations, and trade associations; public reports by governmental bodies and non-government organizations; public corporate reports; and others. Database provides indicators and source lists, but no specific data.

• Measurement Units for Workers Rights (MUWR), on-line database service
• Committee Assessment of Source

Social Accountability International

SA8000, a voluntary workplace standard patterned on those of the International Organization of Standardization was created in 1997 by the Council on Economic Priorities (a U.S. NGO), and is administered by another NGO, Social Accountability International (SAI).

• SA800
• Committee Assessment of Source

Solidar

Updates include news snippets on trade and labor standards, with special attention to the role of the European Union in the WTO

• International Updates
• Committee Assessment of Source

Academic and Other Research

University of Melbourne Legal Research Centre

Database includes links to laws by jurisdiction

• Law database
• Committee Assessment of Source

University of Tartu

This paper looks at the power of Estonian labor unions.

• The Role of Trade Unions in Labour Market Flexibility:The Case of Estonia