Building unions challenge unified status

The new “unified status” has been in effect since 1 January 2014; amongst other things, it provides for uniform advance notice periods for both blue-collar and white-collar workers.   However, the Unified Status Act provides for a number of exceptional regimes, including a structural one for employees who work at temporary and mobile workplaces carrying out works in progress on immovables and have no permanent place of employment. The advance notice periods for employees falling under this regime (in general, blue-collar workers-construction workers) are significantly shorter than those that normally apply in the unified status.   The Explanatory Memorandum to the Act justified this exception by referring to the specific character of sector and the fear that longer advance notice periods would lead to more contracts for limited terms and temporary employment.   A construction worker, backed by the construction trade unions, is currently challenging this exceptional regime for the construction sector before the Constitutional Court. On 2 July 2014, an appeal seeking nullification of the relevant provisions of the law was filed with the Constitutional Court (Cause-list no. 5951).   It is above all the permanent character of the exceptional measure that would appear to be a thorn in the side for the trade unions, in part because it gives rise to a distinction between construction workers with and without a permanent place of employment. The Council of State, in its opinion on the Unified Status Act, had also already commented on this permanent exception for the construction sector.   Everyone is therefore waiting to see what the Constitutional Court will decide about this exceptional regime. We will be sure to inform you as soon as that decision is handed down.