Oversight of compliance with labor legislation

The current legislation stipulates that an employer is obliged to pay wages within the time limits and in the amounts established by legislation, a collective agreement, an agreement, or an employment contract (para. 4, part 1, Art. 55 of the Labor Code of the Republic of Belarus).
In this case, wages must be paid at least twice a month, unless a different frequency is specified by the contract (part 1, Art. 73 of the Labor Code).

Several state bodies, including the prosecutor's office, stand guard over the labor rights of citizens.

Supervision over the enforcement of labor legislation is one of the main activities of the prosecutor's offices of the Vitebsk region.

Information on cases of non-payment of wages to employees of enterprises and organizations of various forms of ownership is constantly received by the prosecutor's offices for the purpose of taking prosecutorial response measures and deciding on the issue of bringing guilty persons to administrative responsibility.

At the same time, in the Vitebsk region, according to statistical data as of March 1, 2022, 29 organizations had wage arrears for January 2022, totaling 1897.9 thousand rubles, including arrears for previous months –
308.9 thousand rubles.

The main reasons for overdue wage arrears remain the lack of own working capital in organizations, high indebtedness, low profitability due to a decrease in production volumes.

In this regard, the prosecutor's offices of the Vitebsk region have issued 20 orders regarding violations of citizens' labor rights and non-compliance with wage payment deadlines. During their execution, at the request of the prosecutor's office, wage arrears have already been paid to 956 employees in 16 organizations of the region for a total amount of 517.9 thousand rubles. The issue of repaying arrears to employees continues to be monitored
by the prosecutor's offices of the region.

Simultaneously, prosecutors of cities and districts have sent to the territorial units of the Department of State Labor Inspectorate of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Republic of Belarus

23 resolutions on the preparation of a case on an administrative offense under Art. 10.12 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Republic of Belarus against the heads of business entities for violations of the procedure
and terms of payment of wages to employees.

In supervisory activities, the requirement for accurate and uniform enforcement of labor legislation remains unchanged. In this regard, in the future, prosecutors of cities and districts of the Vitebsk region will apply the strictest measures against employers who have allowed wage arrears, in order to protect the constitutional rights of employees.

Prosecutor of the Department for Supervision of Legislation and Legality of Legal Acts, Junior Counselor of Justice T.A. Ivanova