Background information

The Association of Hotels and Restaurants of Slovakia (AHRS) and Food Chamber of Slovakia agreed to cooperate in transferring redundant employees from hotels and restaurants to food industry.

The hotels and restaurants were closed or limited their operation and the demand for food products in food industry increased. This measure was set in order to meet higher demand in food industry and to avoid unemployment of employees working in the closed hotels and restaurants with limited operation.

Content of measure

Due to the closure of hotels and restaurants and resulted staff redundancy on one side and a high demand for food products on the other side, the Association of Hotels and Restaurants of Slovakia and the Food Chamber of Slovakia started to cooperate.

The Association and the Chamber help hotel and restaurant employers (posting employers) and food industry employers (user employers) with transfer and with temporary work assignments according to the Labour Law framework. The cooperation is applied through the contract between posting employer and the user employer. Also an agreement between the employee and his/her posting employer is signed. A shared file was created in order to collect information on labour force offer and demand regarding these two sectors.

Use of measure

According to AHRS estimates and evaluation, there were about 350 employees from hotels and restaurants ready to work in food industry. There was also a similar number of vacancies at user employers. This initiative had a very positive impact on employment retention. It was created at the beginning of lockdown when there was no information on the length of pandemic closure. Moreover, no detailed information on employers' support was known. It has been considered as a significant and useful help for hotels and restaurants in terms of cost savings and the creation of financial reserves.

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Employees in standard employment	Does not apply to businesses	Does not apply to citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
Employers' organisations Company / Companies	No special funding required

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	No involvement	Agreed (outcome) incl. social partner initiative
Form	Not applicable	Any other form of consultation, institutionalised (as stable working groups or committees) or informal

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• Only employers' organisations
• Main level of involvement: Sectoral or branch level

Involvement

Based on the negotiations the Association of Hotels and Restaurants of Slovakia and Food Chamber of Slovakia agreed on mutual cooperation.

Views and reactions

There are positive views on this initiative. Also other food industry organisations (for example the Association of Meet Processing, the Slovak Chamber of Agriculture and Food and the Slovak Milk Association) joined the initiative. Moreover, Bratislava Self-governing region supports the agreement between the Association and the Food Chamber. According to the chairman of Bratislava Self-governing region "it is a way to help thousands of people who are currently out of work and to tackle the problem in food industry businesses which experience higher demand for products and lack of labour force" .

Sectors and occupations

This case is not occupation-specific.

Sources

• 19 March 2020: Association of hotels and restaurants of Slovakia (Asociácia hotelov a reštaurácií Slovenska) (www.ahrs.sk)
• 20 March 2020: Transfer of free labour force from hotels and restaurants into food industry (Presun voľných pracovných síl z hotelov a reštaurácií do potravinárskeho priemyslu) (nova.blog.pravda.sk)
• 20 March 2020: Food chamber of Slovakia (Potravinárska komora Slovenska) (www.potravinari.sk)
• 20 March 2020: Bratislava region supports the agreement between hotels and food industry (Bratislavský kraj podporuje dohodu medzi hoteliermi a potravinármi) (www.teraz.sk)
• 20 March 2020: Food industry and hotels agreed on mutual cooperatio (Potravinári a hotelieri sa dohodli na vzájomnej spolupráci) (www.sppk.sk)
• 06 April 2020: Agreement on changes in working conditions during temporary assignment (Dohoda o zmene pracovných podmienok počas dočasného pridelenia) (www.dropbox.com)
• 06 April 2020: Agreement on employees temporary assignment (Zmluva o dočasnom pridelení zamestnancov) (www.dropbox.com)