Although the relevant opinions of the judicial assistants and the lawyer of FAIR-MediaSind coincided, the Bucharest Court (TMB) judge ignored the provisions of Law 367/2022 regarding social dialogue, confusing the federation with the affiliated unions.
Another judicial error – although the unconstitutionality exception was still pending, the decision is missing from the dispositive of the decison.
FAIR-MediaSind will appeal the decision at the Bucharest Court of Appeal so that SRR employees can exercise their constitutional right to strike.
A black spot on the face of Romanian justice was placed with the decison of the Bucharest Court (TMB) restricting the constitutional right to strike for employees of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation (SRR). Without taking into account the legal arguments presented by the lawyer of the Federation of Culture and Media FAIR-MediaSind, as well as the judicial assistants of the Court from both the trade union and employer organizations, the judge of the Bucharest Court declared the general strike, planned for November 5, 2024, as illegal.
In the request submitted to the Bucharest Court – TMB, the management of Radio România argued that the FAIR-MediaSind Federation should have obtained a signature threshold that is only stipulated in Law 367/2022 for non-representative unions. However, in this case, as shown in all negotiation minutes, FAIR-MediaSind, a representative organization and negotiator of the collective labor agreement (CCM) in SRR, meets the provisions of Article 147, Paragraph 1, according to which the decision to declare a strike must be made by unions authorized to negotiate the collective labor agreement and that have triggered the collective labor dispute.
Furthermore, in the action, SRR management also referred to the disaffiliation of its yellow house union from the Federation, claiming that this had affected the mandate given to the organization. This was contested in court since two other affiliated unions – the Romanian Union of Journalists MediaSind and the National Union in Culture FAIR – granted the mandate to negotiate the CCM and to declare the strike. According to the flawed logic of SRR management, if one of three organizations withdraws, negotiations should have been restarted from scratch, a notion inconceivable in the social dialogue of a democratic country.
Also inexplicably rejected was the exception regarding the passive procedural capacity of the Romanian Union of Journalists MediaSind and the National Union in Culture FAIR, although all negotiations of the Collective Labor Agreement in SRR, the initiation and conciliation of the collective labor dispute at the Bucharest Inspectorate Labor – ITM, as well as the declaration of the warning strike and the general strike, were organized by the Federation of Culture and Media FAIR-MediaSind, as shown in the documents submitted to the file.
Equally serious, however, is the fact that the judge ignored the unconstitutionality exception raised by the organization, despite referring to it in the decision, but failing to include it in the dispositive part of the decision!
This dangerous precedent regarding the restriction of the right to strike for both the trade union movement in the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation – SRR and for the entire trade union movement in Romania will be appealed to the Bucharest Court of Appeal, and possibly to international courts if necessary. It is inadmissible that in an EU member state, the right to strike is forbidden because a court refuses to properly recognize the federation status of a trade union organization and ignores both the defenses and the opinions of the judge’s colleagues in the panel.
We also note that, unlike other cases, the hearing date was set less than 48 hours after the submission of the request, and the defense period between the summons and the hearing was under 24 hours.
Despite these flagrant judicial errors that do not honor the court at TMB, the Federation of Culture and Media FAIR-MediaSind maintains its trust in Romanian Justice, hoping that the appeal filed at the Bucharest Court of Appeal will be resolved with the same urgency as the original case, so that Radio Romania employees can exercise their constitutional right to strike.
Moreover, the FAIR-MediaSind Federation reserves the right to organize, with the affiliated unions, additional protest actions until the collective labor dispute is resolved by concluding a CCM that meets the standards of other media institutions, particularly the Romanian Television Society (SRTv).
We present the court decision no. 6764/31.10.2024 of the Bucharest Court, as well as the separate opinions of the judicial assistants:
Hotarare TMB declarare nelegala a grevei
Communication Department of FAIR-MediaSind Federation
Bucharest, November 7, 2024
