Encyklopedia Administracji Publicznej MW Pivot Skin

STRIKE IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION – the right to refrain from work recognized in democratic countries with a social market economy (the right to strike and employee protests) in relation to public administration is subject – to varying degrees in different countries – to certain limitations in relation to the nature of work in this sector (continuity of the state, provision of basic public goods – such as national defence, security, justice, health care). Convention No. 151 of the International Labour Organisation on the protection of the right to organise and procedures for determining conditions of employment in public service allows the states to identify areas in which the right to strike may be restricted or suspended. However, this cannot mean, apart from strictly defined exceptions, the suspension of the essence of the right to articulate the employee interests through other procedures – for example, a collective dispute, mediation, and non-strike forms of presenting their demands (petitions, demonstrations). In practice, the states regulate the subject of strike in public administration in various ways in, allowing the use of this form of protest, but differentiating it in relation to individual departments of public administration, as well as types of positions (managerial, substantive, auxiliary). This is partly due to the adopted → civil service model. The more the system is close to the market system and the more it applies the forms of collective bargaining and does not contain restrictions on association in public administration, the more (though still with restrictions) possible it is to apply the right to strike. In turn, in countries with public regulation of labour relations in public administration the scope of the right to strike is narrower. (→ trade unions in public administration) [D. Długosz]

Literatura: Z. Hajn, Zbiorowe prawo pracy. Zarys systemu, Warszawa 2013 ■ Public Service Employment Relations in Europe: Transformation, Modernization or Inertia?, red. S. Bach, L. Bordogna, G. Della Rocca, D. Winchester, London – New York 1999.