International Labour Review | 2026
Authors: Gyulavári T.; Kártyás G.
DOI: 10.16995/ilr.23796
Journal: International Labour Review
Year: 2026
Publisher: Open Library of Humanities
Document Type: Article
Open Access: All Open Access; Gold Open Access; Green Open Access
Cited by: 0
Collective bargaining has a marginal and steadily diminishing role in employment regulation in Hungary. Flaws in the legal framework are certainly among the main reasons behind low and decreasing coverage. In the light of ILO standards and comparative national examples, this article analyses the Hungarian statutory rules on trade union representativeness and outlines potential reform measures to help reverse the downward trend in coverage. Our aim is to present the Hungarian experience on various aspects of trade union representativeness within a European theoretical framework, which may be of particular interest to labour markets with low union density, especially in Eastern Europe. © The author(s) 2026.
public sector; reform proposals; representativeness; right to collective bargaining; sectoral level; trade unions; works agreements