The law provides workers the right to form and join independent unions of their choosing without authorization or excessive requirements. The law provides for the right to associate freely for both citizens and foreign workers. Unions are apolitical and independent of the state, and the state must not interfere in their internal affairs. The minimum number of members needed to form a union is three.

The law allows collective bargaining. It prohibits antiunion discrimination and does not recognize union activity as a valid reason for dismissal. Workers in most occupations have the legal right to strike if mediation efforts fail, and they generally exercised this right.

Strikes can be restricted or prohibited in essential service sectors, including health and social care facilities, fire brigades, public utility services, air traffic control, nuclear energy, and the oil and natural gas sector. Members of the armed forces, prosecutors, and judges may not form or join trade unions or strike. Only trade unions may legally represent workers, including nonmembers. When planning a strike, unions are required to inform employers in writing of the number of strikers and provide a list of the members of the strike committee or contact persons for negotiation. They must announce the strike at least three days in advance. While regulations entitle union members to conduct some union activities during work hours, they do not specify how much time workers may use for this purpose, leaving room for diverse interpretations on the part of employers.

The law protects union officials from dismissal by an employer during their term of union service and for 12 months after its completion. To dismiss a union official, an employer must seek prior consent from the employee’s unit within the union. If the union does not consent, the dismissal notice is invalid.

The government worked to enforce such laws effectively and permitted unions to conduct their activities without interference. Government resources for inspections and remediation were adequate, and legal penalties in the form of fines were sufficient to deter violations.

The Czech-Moravian Confederation of Trade Unions (CMKOS) reported violations of the labor law and trade union rules continued during the year. CMKOS also reported violations and cases of discrimination, including employers raising administrative obstacles to collective bargaining, threatening to dismiss employees who asserted their union rights, including refusing to terminate union activities, or attempting to form unions.

Union and nonunion employees often preferred to switch jobs rather than file a formal complaint. Employees would usually file complaints only if the employer stopped paying wages.

During the year labor unions most frequently used strikes and strike alerts to advance their goals. Strikes and strike alerts predominantly targeted wages.

b. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor

The law prohibits all forms of forced or compulsory labor, and the government effectively enforced these prohibitions. Resources, inspections, and remediation were adequate. Penalties were sufficient to deter violations.

Forced labor trafficking is the second most common form of trafficking after sex trafficking. There were reports men and women, including migrant workers, were subject to forced labor trafficking, typically through debt bondage. The Ministry of Interior reported 11 total victims (all women) of trafficking in 2018, compared to 14 victims (10 women and four men) in 2017. The victims were from the Philippines, Romania, Sierra Leone, the Slovak Republic, and Ukraine. Private labor agencies often used deceptive practices to recruit workers from abroad, as well as from inside the country, despite very high demand in the country’s labor market. Foreign applicants that used private labor agencies mostly came from Romania, Bulgaria, the Philippines, and Nepal. Forced laborers often worked in the construction industry or seasonal types of work.

Also see the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

The law prohibits the worst forms of child labor. The minimum age for employment is 15. Employment of children between the ages of 15 and 18 was subject to strict safety standards, limitations on hours of work, and the requirement that work not interfere with education.

The law permits children younger than 15 (or who have not completed mandatory elementary education) to only work in certain areas: cultural and artistic activities, advertising, product promotion, and certain modeling and sports activities. A child younger than 15 may work only if he or she obtains a positive health assessment from a pediatrician and prior approval by the Labor Office. Work permits for children are issued for 12 months. Resources, inspections, and remediation were adequate. The State Bureau for Labor Inspections (SBLI) effectively enforced these regulations. Penalties for infringement of these laws and regulations were sufficient to deter violations. The SBLI did not report any child labor law violations during the year.

Labor laws and regulations prohibit any kind of discrimination based on nationality, race, color, religion, political opinion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity, age, disability, HIV-positive status or presence of other communicable diseases, social status, or trade union membership.

The SBLI conducted checks for unequal treatment and discrimination in 2018 and imposed penalties for violations of discrimination laws, mostly noncompliance with the requirement to employ a specific number of persons with disabilities, gender and age-based discrimination, or the publication of discriminatory job advertisements. The SBLI recorded a decrease in unequal treatment and discrimination at work in 2018 compared to 2017. According to CMKOS, labor discrimination cases usually involved gender pay gaps.

Women’s salaries lagged behind men’s by approximately 22 percent.

In March Prague Gas, a state-owned company, apologized to a woman for discriminating against her while selecting a new financial manager. The woman sued in 2006 and requested an apology, appointment to the position, and financial compensation of one million crowns ($43,000). In 2017 a court ordered the company to apologize, and the appellate court upheld the decision in November 2018. The courts rejected the woman’s other claims. She asked the Supreme Court to review the decision.

At the beginning of the year, the Prague Municipal Court ruled a woman who was demoted from a management position two days before starting maternity leave faced gender discrimination. The court ordered a public apology and for a new judge to review the case, criticizing the previous judge for not requiring the Office of the Government to prove the woman was demoted for bad performance. The victim was the former head of the human rights section at the Office of the Government in 2011.

Associations supporting HIV-positive individuals reported cases of discrimination. HIV-positive individuals are not legally obligated to report their diagnosis to their employer unless it prevents them from executing their duties. Some employers dismissed HIV-positive employees due to prejudices of other employees. To avoid accusations of discrimination, employers justified such dismissals on administrative grounds, such as redundancy.

In November 2017 the Prague Municipal Court upheld the classification of HIV as a disability following the wrongful termination of an HIV-positive police officer. The court also stated the termination was in line with an applicable internal ministerial decree. The Supreme Court reversed the Municipal Court’s ruling in October 2018 and returned the case to the police president for final decision.

According to an ombudsperson’s report, discrimination at work accounted for the greatest number of complaints delivered to the ombudsperson’s office in 2018. Racial and ethnic discrimination made up the largest category of complaints followed by discrimination based on disability or age.

The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs establishes and enforces minimum wage standards. The minimum wage is above the “minimum subsistence cost,” which is defined as the minimum amount needed to satisfy the basic needs of a working-age adult for a month. Enforcement of the minimum wage was one of the primary objectives of SBLI inspections.

The law provides for a 40-hour workweek, two days of rest per week, and a 30-minute break during the standard eight-hour workday. Employees are entitled to at least 20 days of paid annual leave. Employers may require up to eight hours per week of overtime to meet increased demand but not more than 150 hours of overtime in a calendar year. Additional overtime is subject to the employee’s consent. The labor code requires premium pay for overtime that is equal to at least 125 percent of average earnings.

The government set occupational health and safety standards that were appropriate for the country’s main industries. The labor code requires employers to provide health and safety protections in the workplace, maintain a healthy and safe work environment, and prevent health and safety risks.

The government effectively enforced the law. SBLI inspectors conducted checks for labor code compliance and imposed penalties that were sufficient to deter violations. SBLI’s labor inspection plan typically focused on sectors with high-risk working conditions, such as construction, agriculture, and forestry, handling of hazardous chemicals, and transport.

Employers sometimes ignored standard requirements for work conditions in situations involving migrant workers. Relatively unskilled foreign workers from less developed countries were sometimes dependent on temporary employment agencies to find and retain work. Migrants sometimes worked in substandard conditions. Most commonly, salaries were paid to the agencies, which then garnished them, resulting in workers receiving subminimum wages, working overtime without proper compensation, or working without compensation. Since migrant workers seldom filed formal complaints of such abuses, authorities had few opportunities to intervene.

There were 44,365 registered workplace injuries in 2018, 576 fewer than 2017. There were 123 fatal accidents in 2018, compared to 95 in 2017, largely due to a mining accident. Most workplace injuries and deaths occurred in the agriculture, forestry, transport, construction, warehousing, and processing industries. According to the SBLI, the most common causes of injuries or fatal incidents included: underestimated risk, falls from height, irresponsible application of dangerous work procedures and techniques, unauthorized conduct or remaining in hazardous zones, and failure to observe safety instructions.

Workers may remove themselves from situations that endanger their health or safety without jeopardizing their employment, and the SBLI enforced this standard relatively consistently.