Committee on Labor, Employment and Social Protection: on the norms of legislation for the employment of minors

Conclusion of an employment contract.

An employment contract may be concluded with persons aged 16 years (Article 21 of the Labor Code of the Republic of Belarus (hereinafter referred to as the LC)).

An employment contract may be concluded with a person who has reached the age of 14 years only with the written consent of one of the parents (adoptive parent, guardian) (Article 21 of the LC). Such consent may be expressed by submitting a separate written application to the employer.

The legislation does not provide for the notarization of consent for the employment of a minor.

A sample employment contract is established by the Resolution of the Ministry of Labor of the Republic of Belarus of December 27, 1999 No. 155.

Please note!

After concluding an employment contract, the minor employee must be familiarized, under signature, with the internal labor regulations, labor protection instructions, job (work) description, collective agreement, remuneration policy, and other local legal acts in force at the employer's organization.

Employment contracts concluded with persons under 14 years of age, as well as with a person who has reached the age of 14 years but without the written consent of one of the parents (adoptive parent, guardian), are recognized as invalid (Article 22 of the LC).

Employment of minors on a part-time basis is not allowed (Article 348 of the LC).

When concluding an employment contract with minors, the employer is not entitled to set a probationary period for them (Article 28 of the LC).

When hiring, the employer is obliged to request the documents necessary for concluding the employment contract from the employee (Article 54 of the LC). The list of these documents is contained in Article 26 of the LC.

Employment without the specified documents is not allowed (Article 26 of the LC).

However, minor employees who are employed for the first time usually do not have a work record book, a state social insurance certificate, or an education document. The absence of these documents is not an obstacle to their employment.

It is quite common for employment record books not to be issued to minor employees due to the short duration of their employment.

However, employers (with the exception of employers who are individuals) are required to fill out employment record books for all employees who work for more than 5 days, including those starting work for the first time, if such employment is their primary job (Clause 4 of the Instructions on the Procedure for Maintaining Employment Record Books, approved by the Resolution of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Republic of Belarus of June 16, 2014 No. 40 (hereinafter referred to as Instructions No. 40).

Thus, hiring an employee, even for a short period exceeding 5 days, does not exempt the employer from the obligation to issue and fill out an employment record book for them.

An exception to this rule is provided only for employers who are individual entrepreneurs.

All persons under 18 years of age are hired only after a preliminary medical examination and, thereafter, annually undergo mandatory medical examinations until they reach the age of 18 (Article 275 of the Labor Code).

Work Assigned to Minors.

The labor performed by minors aged 14 to 16 must be classified as light work and must not harm their health and development (Article 272 of the Labor Code).

When determining the category of work intended for a minor, the employer should be guided by the list of light types of work that can be performed by persons aged fourteen to sixteen, established by the Resolution of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Republic of Belarus of October 15, 2010 No. 144.

Please note!

The provided list is exhaustive! This means that minors aged 14 to 16 are not permitted to be engaged in work not included in this list.

When hiring persons aged 16 to 18, it should be taken into account that the employment of persons under 18 years of age is prohibited in heavy work and in work with harmful and (or) hazardous working conditions, on

underground and mining operations (Article 274 of the Labor Code).

When hiring individuals of the specified category, it is necessary to be guided by the list of works on which the labor of persons under eighteen years of age is prohibited, established by the resolution of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Republic of Belarus of June 27, 2013 No. 67.

In addition to the listed requirements, when assigning work to a minor, the employer must also take into account the maximum limits for lifting and moving weights manually by minors, established by the resolution of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Belarus of October 13, 2010 No. 134.

Working hours of minors.

When determining the working hours regime for minor employees, it should be taken into account that for this category of persons, the norm for working hours is provided:

for employees aged 14 to 16 – no more than 23 hours per week;

for employees aged 16 to 18 – no more than 35 hours per week (Article 114 of the Labor Code).

In this case, the duration of daily work (shift) cannot exceed:

for employees aged 14 to 16 – 4 hours and 36 minutes,
from sixteen to eighteen – 7 hours;

for students receiving general secondary, vocational-technical education, special education at the level of general secondary education, working during the academic year in their free time, aged fourteen to sixteen – 2 hours and 18 minutes, aged sixteen to eighteen – 3 hours and 30 minutes (Article 115 of the Labor Code).

Involvement of minors in night and overtime work, work on public holidays, festive and rest days.

It is prohibited to involve employees under 18 years of age in night and overtime work, work on public holidays, festive and rest days, unless otherwise established by the Labor Code (Article 276 of the Labor Code).

Employees under 18 years of age are not allowed to work at night (from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.), even if it falls within a part of the working day or shift, as well as to overtime work, work on public holidays and festive days.

days established and declared by the President of the Republic of Belarus as non-working, on weekends, unless otherwise established by the Labor Code (Art. 117, 120, 276 of the Labor Code).

In addition, minors are not subject to non-standard working hours (Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus of December 10, 2007 No. 1695).

Setting of output norms for minors.

Due to physiological characteristics, minors are unable to perform work on par with adult employees.

Taking this into account, for employees under 18 years of age, output norms are established based on the output norms for adult employees proportionally to the reduced working hours provided for by law for this category of employees (Art. 278 of the Labor Code).

Remuneration of minors.

When remunerating minors, the specifics provided for in Art. 279 of the Labor Code must be taken into account.

Remuneration of employees under 18 years of age with reduced daily working hours is made in the same amount as the remuneration of employees of the corresponding categories with full working week duration.

The labor of employees under 18 years of age, admitted to piece-rate work, is paid at piece-rate tariffs established for adult employees with a supplement based on the tariff rate (tariff salary), salary
for the time during which their daily work duration is reduced compared to the daily work duration of adult employees.

Remuneration of students receiving general secondary education, special education, education at the level of general secondary education, vocational and secondary specialized education, working in their free time from studies, is made proportionally to the time worked or depending on output. Employers may establish wage supplements.

Duration of annual leave for minor employees.

The duration of annual leave for minors is 30 calendar days (Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus of January 24, 2008 No. 100).

As a general rule, for the first working year, annual leave (basic and additional) is granted to employees no earlier than six months after commencing employment with the employer. However, this condition does not apply to certain categories of employees.

Thus, at the request of minor employees, the employer is obliged to grant them annual leave before the expiration of six months of work in the first working year (Article 166 of the Labor Code).

In addition, the planning of annual leave in the schedule and the granting of annual leave to employees under 18 years of age are carried out in the summer or, at their request, at any other convenient time of the year (Articles 168 and 277 of the Labor Code).

Annual leave for employees under 18 years of age is granted to them annually during the working year, meaning that the transfer of leave (or part thereof) to the next working year is not allowed (Article 170 of the Labor Code), and it can only be used in kind, i.e., it cannot be replaced by monetary compensation (Article 161 of the Labor Code).

Recalling employees of this age category from annual leave is also not permitted (Article 174 of the Labor Code).

The Labor Code contains certain guarantees regarding the material liability of minor employees.

The employer is not entitled to conclude written agreements on full material liability with employees under 18 years of age
(Article 405 of the Labor Code).

In accordance with the clarifications contained in the Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Belarus of March 26, 2002, No. 2 "On the application by courts of legislation on the material liability of employees for damage caused to the employer in the performance of their labor duties" in relation to sub-paragraphs 1 and 2, as well as parts 1 and 2 of paragraph 3 of Article 25 of the Civil Code of the Republic of Belarus, taking into account the provisions of Article 273 of the Labor Code, the minor themselves bears material liability in the amount established by the Labor Code for damage caused to the employer, if they are between 14 and 16 years old, and the person who gave written consent to conclude the employment contract bears subsidiary liability. Minors who have reached the age of 16 bear such liability independently. Minors do not bear material liability

on the grounds provided for in para. 1 of Art. 404 of the Labor Code, since written agreements on full material liability can be concluded by the employer with employees who have reached the age of 18 (Part 1 of Art. 405 of the Labor Code).

Termination of an employment contract with minors.

The legislation contains a number of guarantees when terminating employment contracts with employees under 18 years of age (Art. 282 of the Labor Code).

Thus, dismissal on certain grounds is permissible only with the consent of the district (city) commission for juvenile affairs.

These grounds include:

liquidation of the organization, termination of the activities of a branch, representative office, or other separate subdivision of the organization located in another locality, termination of the activities of an individual entrepreneur, reduction in the number or staff of employees;

non-compliance of the employee with the position held or the work performed due to health status that prevents the continuation of this work;

non-compliance of the employee with the position held or the work performed due to insufficient qualification, which prevents the continuation of this work;

absence from work for more than four consecutive months due to temporary incapacity for work (excluding maternity leave), unless the legislation establishes a longer period for retaining the job (position) in case of a certain illness.

For employees who have lost their ability to work due to a work-related injury or occupational disease, the job (position) is retained until their ability to work is restored or disability is established.

When dismissing on the grounds provided for in paras. 4, 5, 7-9 of Art. 42 and paras. 2 and 3 of Art. 44 of the Labor Code, the dismissal of minors is possible after prior notification, at least two weeks in advance, to the district (city) commission for juvenile affairs, unless otherwise established by the Labor Code.