Latvia: is soon to bring into effect a new law on trade unions

The fact that Latvia will hold the presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2015 has pushed the country towards faster reforms in the area of social relations. This is so that it will have an improved image in the social relations arena during its presidency. In fact since the end of the Soviet era, the Latvian labor market is experiencing declining union membership (today only about 100,000 workers are affiliated to a union). Employers and the national Free Trade Union Confederation (LBAS) have worked together to complete the new union legislation.
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The new trade union law. Adopted in March 2014 by the parliament (the Saimea) and to be put in force from November 1, 2014, the new law which has already provoked debate in the business community aims to update legislation that had been put into effect only a short while after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and one which quickly appeared to be both inadequate as regards international provisions and often unworkable due to contradictions with other more recent pieces of legislation. The new law

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