BAHR
Employment
New legislation, new adaptations Tarjei Thorkildsen, Tor Olav Carlsen and Maren Elvestad of BAHR’s Employment group are closely monitoring employment law developments in the wake of a new employment policy. Close dialogue and sound agreements with employees have never been more important for success. - Collective agreements are mainstream commercial law, and not only a special interest discipline. Collective agreements should be a management focus, says Tarjei Thorkildsen, BAHR partner and Head of our Employment group. On 3 June 2021, the Supreme Court delivered a judgment of significance for the implications of being bound by a collective agreement. Specifically, the case concerned the replacement of a collective agreement after switching to a new employers’ federation, but its significance extends beyond that. The Supreme Court concluded in this judgment that certain provisions of the collective agreement become part of each employee’s employment agreement and that these provisions will not lapse as a direct consequence of the collective agreement no longer being applicable to the employer. <<< 20
The judgment was called a collective agreement bombshell from the Supreme Court, and affects the entire transaction market and how the parties need to address employee rights. Both during and after the transaction. - The case provides important guidance on how collective agreement obligations affect the transfer of undertakings. Collective agreements may also be of decisive importance in daily operations, says Thorkildsen, before adding: - Collective agreements are important and form part of commercial law for the simple reason that they apply to many people, and in multiple ways. That is in the nature of these agreements. They are collective, and they tend to remain in place for a long time. The BAHR lawyers believe that companies which bring collective agreements and union representative dialogue into the board room and senior management meetings have a greater chance of success. - Few things are as destructive to a business as poor relations with union representatives. Those
