Presidential decree #29 of July 29, 1999, has recently come into force “On additional measures on improving labor relations, strengthening labor and executive discipline”. In accordance with the law in question, employers were given the right to sign employee contracts with additional clauses that would allow the employer to cancel the contract before the initially agreed date. The document had been prepared for more than two years. The draft law had been discussed by employees most of whom said the tight conditions for employees should be amended. Especially critical of the document were labor unions. At the same time, authorities actively advertised the draft law, which was finally adopted after several amendments.
As survey results suggest, despite the long discussion of the document and active propaganda, 35.5% of the respondents said they were not unaware of it. Another 18.0% could not say anything about the law, which must also be an indication of being unaware of its main ideas. Only 14.1% of the respondents are positive that the decree will help to improve labor discipline and order and only 3.6% believe employees will benefit from it while the responsibility of employers will increase. At the same time, almost one fourth of the pollsters (24.7%) believe that the decree makes employees more dependent of their employers and another 14.1% believe it violates their constitutional right to work.
Thus, more than two thirds of those aware of the decree’s main ideas believe it infringes on employees’ rights, which contradicts authorities’ claims about almost unanimous support for the decree on the part of the population.