Strike action at the forefront of the social partnership agenda

In the post-crisis world, employee organisations are not only finding it difficult to gain sufficient traction to engender the improvements in working conditions which might be associated with the upturn in a country’s economic fortunes; they are actually finding that the collective bargaining environment has become significantly more difficult. Nevertheless, the level of discontent with working conditions has become such that employees in the Slovak Republic are starting to look to forms of industrial action as a solution despite a recent history of a lack of such engagement. The authors review the legislation of the Slovak Republic governing industrial and constitutional strikes, a decades-long legal debate which has produced a lack of certainty about the legitimacy of strike action, and point out that this has led to recently rising controversy and tension between the social partners. The article refers to the practical details of organising strikes as set out in the law, with the authors concluding that the design of effective supportive legislation concerning the right to strike is no simple matter.