Mačernytė Panomariovienė, Ingrida

The employment relationship is the most sensitive public relationship that exists between those who perform work (employees) and those who create jobs (employers). Globalization and new technologies, economic crises, the COVID-19 pandemic, wars (such as in Syria, Ukraine, etc.), the expansion of the World Trade Organization, and other reasons point to the need for change and adaptation to new conditions, including employment relations. The changed relationship between labor and capital has brought the parties’ interests even closer, and has opened up the need for closer cooperation. Law and legal regulation are inevitable for the monitoring of such changes, and require a quick response. Flexicurity is one of the values that is constantly under dispute by lawmakers. However, while adopting labor laws, lawmakers are under pressure from the confrontation between the interests of state, employees and employers; thus, it is extremely difficult to drive innovation in the regulation of employment relations. Even if some amendments are made to labor laws, the subjects of employment relations often are unprepared, untrained and (or) unable to take advantage of such amendments. There is a noticeable trend towards reducing the international labor standards developed by the International Labor Organization (ILO and narrowing the scope of the regulation of issues, such as by excluding material or disciplinary liability), while at the same time much more attention is paid to the quality of the regulation of labor relations.614 The most frequently cited reason for the ILO’s regulatory suspension is the failure to reach a consensus among contracting parties and growing economic pressures.

In the context of globalisation processes, technological changes, and business mobility, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are facing the necessity to modify their approach towards the legal regulation of employment relations. Labour laws of the Baltics States, namely concerning new forms of work, worklife balance, and social dialogue, were systematised, rectified, and clarified by analysing texts that consist of primary and secondary sources. The research conducted in the article showed that the move from strict regulation to more flexible arrangements between employer and employee in these states is an ongoing process, which has been delayed for more than 10 years, because during that period the old Soviet laws inherited from the past (with appropriate amendments) were in force. Therefore, the search for new forms of work is slow, the regulation of working time remains rather strict and inflexible, and the involvement of social partners in the processes of collective bargaining remains very formal and segmented. This legal research of transformation of legal regulation of labour relations in the Baltic States might be used to forecast future developments of such legal regulation, as well as to enrich the imagination and increase the set of alternatives to be considered when drafting possible future rules.

This article assesses the significance of social partnership in the regulation of employment relations. It is pointed out that the legal regulation of employment relations in Lithuania lacks stability, and the hypothesis is raised that this situation has been partly determined by the vanishing, negligible role of social partnership. The presumption is put forward that the regulation of employment relations can result in an effective and sustainable balance between the interests of employees and employers only if the possibilities of social partnership are used to their full extent and an optimal balance is achieved between contractual law-making and state law-making. The Lithuanian social partnership model is defined as gravitating from quasipartnership towards real social partnership; therefore, ways are still being sought as to how to strengthen the impact of social partnership on the regulation of employment relations by means of legislation and the use of soft law. To reveal the impact of social partnership on the regulation of employment relations in Lithuania, the article identifies and assesses the key indicators revealing the influence of social partnership on the regulation of employment relations and examines the positive legal regulation related to social partnership.

There is a great deal of legislation that has been adopted by the European Union which, in one way or another, aims at ensuring equal opportunities and a good work–life balance. One specific issue in this area relates to childcare leave. In practice, providing for equal opportunities has meant enabling women to integrate into the labor market, to advance their careers, and to have more guarantees and rights at work. In reality, thus far these measures have not been effective enough. The new Directive (EU) 2019/1158 on work–life balance for parents and carers, adopted on 20 June 2019, seeks to increase the take-up of family-related leave and flexible working arrangements by men (fathers). The purpose of this article is to assess what effects this new EU directive will have upon Lithuanian law in this area.

The right to annual leave as originated from the need to protect human dignity is a fundamental right for people performing work and therefore requires strong and adequate protection at the national level. Notwithstanding the legal discourse on placing certain entitlements in the frame of rights or freedom, this right requires legal remedies that allow its full enjoyment by assigning responsibilities and duties to the parties to the employment relationship. This manuscript aims to evaluate the Lithuanian and Polish labour legislation through the prism of their constitutional and statutory law provisions, taking into account the supranational fundamental principles related to this subject, as well as a discussion related to the scope of labour law and the level of guarantees for employed people. Therefore, since the right to health and safety needs to be fully encompassing, the subjective or objective focus of protection (the ‘per worker’ or ‘per contract’ approach) concerning cases of concurrent contracts with one or more employer(s) will be part of the discussion. This analysed topic has become a part of the extended scientific discourse related to issues of the future world of work, determined by the dissemination of atypical and novel forms of employment and their consequences: e.g. lowered social protection and precarious employment. In relation to the above point, the need for protection of health and safety of the employed constitutes the focal point for all labour protective legislation and requires a focus on issues connected with the protection of the individual rights.

Freedom to provide services and free movement of workers are linked to the processes of permanent intra-EU migration, which are regulated, inter alia, by the national legislation implementing PWD. Consequently, the posting of workers within EU is not only part of the work organization process, but also part of a wider phenomenon of internal migration of workers. Accordingly, posted workers are to be considered as internal labour migrants. The regulation of the posting of workers must consider the legitimate interest of Member States in protecting their markets from social dumping as well as ensure minimum guarantees for posted workers. These circumstances presuppose changes in the regulation of the posting of workers. This article identifies four stages in the transposition of PWD into Lithuanian national law that are causally related to changes in European legislation and Lithuanian labour law reform as of 2017. It presents the legal assessment of national legal regulation and case law, identifying the related legal problems. The article pays special attention to the legal regulation of the remuneration of a posted worker, established by PWD (Directive 96/71/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on 16 December 1996 concerning the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services (Official Journal (EU), 2004, no. L 18) [Directive 96/71/EC], with the amendments introduced by Directive 2014/67/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council from 15 May 2014 on the enforcement of Directive 96/71/EC concerning the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services and amending Revision 4 of the EU Posting of Workers Directive Regulation (EU) No 1024/2012 on administrative cooperation through the Internal Market Information System (‘the IMI Regulation’) (Official Journal (EU), 2014, no. L 159) [Directive 2014/67/EU] and Directive 2018/957/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council on June 2018 amending Directive 96/71/EC concerning the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services (Official Journal (EU), 2018, no. L 173) [Directive 2018/957/EU]). It also explains the impact on the regulation of employment relations for posted workers in Lithuania stemming from Directive 2019/1152 on transparent and predictable working conditions in the EU.

Šio leidinio iniciatoriai – buvę studentai ir kolegos dedikuoja savo mokslinius straipsnius žinomai Lietuvoje darbo teisės žinovei gerbiamai profesorei daktarei Genovaitei Dambrauskienei.