The legal system of collective bargaining: the impact of recent legislative reform measures on Workers’ Statutes

Abstract

The labor reform of 2021 has not entailed a radical change in the pre-existing Legal Model, but rather a significant “correction” of its authoritarian (and excessively heteronomous) character and its pro-business rationalization logic. The successive labor reforms prior to that of 2021 have been along the lines of a negative flexibilization of collective bargaining and “limitation” of the binding force of sectoral agreements (e.g., opt-outs through, certainly, the different types of company collective bargaining agreements; preferential non-applications by company agreements without the need to allege justifying causes; unilateral modification of “extra-statutory” collective bargaining agreements and company collective agreements; systematic call for mandatory arbitration in the last instance; and so on). The latest reform of 2021 -in those matters it dealt with- represents a shift towards returning to collective autonomy the powers of collective self-government.