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Management Board Report on the activity of the JSW S.A. for 2012
4.6. Relations with trade unions
There are 38 active Trade Union Organizations operating in the Company. In the period from March to November 2012, the relations between the JSW S.A. Management Board and the trade unions were dominated by talks related to two collective disputes that the Joint Representation of the Trade Unions commenced with the JSW S.A. Management Board on 29 February 2012. One collective dispute concerned the immediate withdrawal by the employer from the decision to introduce new employment contracts for newly-hired employees. The other dispute concerned a raise of the base salary rates by 7%, which would procure real payroll growth in 2012. Negotiations on those disputes ended with the parties drawing up discrepancy reports.
On 13 June 2012, the Joint Representation of Trade Unions at JSW S.A. appointed the Inter-Union Protest and Strike Committee (“MKP-S”) at JSW S.A. which on 20 and 21 June 2012 held a referendum concerning the collective disputes in JSW S.A. mines and in the Material Logistics Center. 14,144 employees, i.e. 61.75% of the total headcount at JSW S.A. took part in the referendum (in 2011, 78.5% of the total headcount at JSW S.A. took part in the referendum).
The result of the referendum authorized MKP-S JSW S.A. to carry out strikes at JSW S.A. according to the Act on Resolving Collective Disputes. On 6 July 2012, a 2-hour warning strike was held in organizational units of JSW S.A. in all shifts.
The talks on the collective disputes were renewed and conducted in working teams, but they failed to bring the Parties together. As a result, on 19 October 2012, the MKP-S held a 24-hour strike in all the organizational units of JSW S.A. in all shifts. 5,465 employees, i.e. 24% of the workforce, participated in the strike.
On 24 October 2012, representatives of the Trade Unions met with members of the JSW S.A. Supervisory Board. Another meeting was held on 8 October 2012, at the initiative of the JSW S.A. Management Board. At that meeting the JSW S.A. Management Board and the trade unions signed the agreements that ended the collective disputes raised on 29 February 2012.
According to the agreement on the 7% increase of basic salary rates to ensure salary increases in 2012, as of 1 November 2012 basic salary rates increased by 3.4% and a one-off bonus was paid out. Additionally, the agreement adopted a method of shaping salary increases for employees of JSW S.A. in the years 2013-2015, by the inflation rate assumed for the budget legislation in the given year, possibly reconciled to the actual inflation by negotiation between the JSW S.A. Management Board and the trade unions. In performance of the Agreement on the immediate withdrawal by the employer from the decision to introduce new employment contracts for newly-hired employees, the JSW S.A. Management Board modified the provisions of employment contracts with the employees hired by JSW S.A. after 15 February 2012. The changes pertained to both the term of the employment contracts and the method used to calculate seniority-related allowance (dodatek stażowy) and the requirements for eligibility for the annual bonus on Miner's Day and the “14th salary".
In 2012, the social dialog in JSW S.A. which was dominated by the two collective disputes was a significant disruption in the work on the Collective Bargaining Agreement for JSW S.A. employees and on the consultations on the Labor Rules and Regulations. 17 meetings on that subject were held in the period from January to June 2012. No provision of the Collective Bargaining Agreement or the Labor Rules and Regulations was agreed upon during those meetings. Moreover at the meeting on 6 September 2012, the JSW S.A. Management Board conducted talks with the trade union organizations to work out an appropriate arrangement that would finally regulate the standardization of jobs and the payment of a standardization allowance. The parties however did not reach a common stance in this matter.