Regional Project on Labour Relations and Social Dialogue Warsaw in February 2014 Annual Review 2013 Czech Republic ­Labour Relations and Social Dialogue Author: Sona Veverkova 1 Research Institute for Labour and Social Affairs, Prague Executive Summary Social dialogue in the Czech Republic was affected particularly by the level of communication of the gov­ernment and social partners in the period from 2007 to 2013. First signs of an economic crisis occurred in Czech Republic in 2008 during Prime Minister´s Miroslav Topolánek right-wing government, which, however, was prematurely replaced in April 2009 by the caretaker government of Prime Minister Jan Fischer. He pledged to communicate with social partners and respect their views. Thus the relations between the gov­ernment and social partners were consolidated in the period from 2009 to July 2010. But the following, right­wing government of Petr Ne č as(ODS) elected in May 2010 refused to respect the results of the previous social dialogue. As a consequence, the relations between the government and social partners, especially with trade unions have been getting worse. Thus, both trade unions and employers welcomed the new care­taker government of Ji ř í Rusnok, who was appointed by the President Miloš Zeman after the resignation of Petr Ne č as´ government in June 2013. In early elections held in October 2013, seven months before the constitutional expiry of the elected parliament's four year legislative term, the two parties gaining the most seats were the left-wing Č SSD(50 seats/200 in total) and the new party ANO 2011(47 seats/200 in total). However, the government has not been formed yet. 1 Sona Veverkova, 1979, graduated in 2002 from the University of Economics in Prague. Since 2005 she works as a researcher in Social Dialogue Department of the Research Institute for Labour and Social Affairs (Vyzkumny ustav prace a socialnich veci, v. t. i.) 1