The Perspectives of Developing a Unified Institute of Labour Law Disputes in Lithuanian Labour Law

Abstract

Conflicts are one of the essential features of labour relations. Labour disputes between employees and employers are one form of all social conflicts. They are imminent. The concepts of “labour dispute” and “labour conflict” quite often are used as synonymous both in Lithuanian and foreign legislation, practice and particularly scholalry writings. The problem of interpretation of these two concepts occurs also in labour law. There is no uniform approach towards their use. Authors differ on interpretation of the concepts of “labour conflict” and “labour dispute”. The analysis of the most typical features of social conflicts arising in the area of public labour relations leads to a conclusion that a labour dispute and a labour conflict are not identical phenomena. The concept of a “labour dispute” constitutes a legal category, whereas the concept of “labour conflict” is more of a reflection of the sociological content of this phenomenon. Therefore only an institutionalised labour conflict with certain legal features should be considered as a labour dispute, with legal measures and procedures applied to resolve it.
This article deals with theoretical problems of the concepts of labour disputes and labour conflicts. Analysing scholarly writings and international practice in this area this article analyses the system of labour disputes and the means of their settlement. This article also addresses the position of International Labour Organisation to labour disputes. The article concludes with a critical approach to the system of labour disputes in Lithuanian labour law and practice.
The nature of current labour relations and the development of the system of labour relations determines the necessity to have a wider view to labour disputes, modify their types, content elements, as well as the ways and methods of their resolution. Therefore it is proposed that the doctrine and practice of Lithuanian labour law should develop a classification of labour disputes. This classification is of high theoretical and practical importance. It should be developed according to the objective and the subjective criteria. Labour disputes should be grouped into individual labour disputes, collective labour disputes over rights and collective labour disputes over interests.