Social dialogue and the role of government and the regional governments in collective bargaining

This diploma thesis focuses on social dialogue in the Czech Republic. It contains a legislative basis for collective bargaining and social dialogue, explains basic concepts such as social dialogue, collective bargaining and tripartite, and also explains the roles of social partners - trade unions, employer associations and government. It compares the theoretical concept of tripartite with the real process of negotiation of the Council of Economic and Social Agreement of the Czech Republic. There is also a description of the social dialogue according to the different levels -- European, national, sectoral and corporate. In the practical part, the project "Podpora sociálního dialogu a rozvoje regionálních tripartit pro posílení obchodu a cestovního ruchu" is introduced. The thesis examines the fulfillment of its goals (whether there has been an expansion and improvement of the regional tripartites), identifies the greatest threats and risks and gives recommendations for more effective social dialogue. In the conclusion the hypotheses are answered: the number of company collective agreements decreases over time, but that does not necessarily mean the decrease of the number of bipartite negotiations in general. The number of higher level collective agreements remains relatively stable over time. The role of the government in the tripartism is not decreasing -- the current government puts higher importance on social dialogue than previous governments did. The number of tripartite negotiations, however, is not influenced by the political ideology of the government.