The Legal Status Of The Elected Employees’ Representatives In The Community Normative Acts And Legislation Of The Republic Of Moldova

The Republic of Moldova has recently registered a downward trend in the unionization rate and trust in trade unions, phenomena which have led to the need to identify some ways of representing the employees in the negotiation of collective agreements and settlement of collective labour disputes. The Moldovan legislator has responded to these trends by enshrining the legal institution of the elected employees’ representatives as an alternative to unions. In this article the authors have researched the community normative acts and the Moldovan legislation pertaining to the legal status of the elected employees’ representatives. In this context, the authors have formulated a definition of the elected employees’ representatives and have additionally outlined a series of general conclusions pertaining to the field under consideration such as: the Moldovan law enshrines the monopoly of the primary trade union organizations in the negotiation and conclusion of collective labour agreements and the initiation and resolution of collective labour disputes. However, if there is no primary trade union organization within the entity, the collective rights (the right to entity administration, the right to collective bargaining etc.) may be exercised by the elected employees’ representatives.