Innovations in labor legislation

In order to protect the labor rights of citizens and improve the current labor legislation, on July 18, 2019, the President of the Republic of Belarus signed a Law that introduces amendments to the Labor Code of the Republic of Belarus. Despite the fact that the amendments affected more than 200 articles, we would like to focus on the most significant ones.

Thus, a new Chapter 18-1 has been added to the Code, which defines the specifics of regulating the labor of employees with whom contracts are concluded. The employer still has the right to extend the contract within the five-year term of its validity, both for one year and for longer periods. However, according to Article 261-3 of the Labor Code, each party that has concluded a contract must, no later than one month before the expiration of its term, notify the other party in writing of the decision to continue or terminate the employment relationship. From 01/28/2020, the extension of a contract within the five-year term of its validity is carried out by agreement of the parties for a period of at least one year, and for an employee who does not tolerate violations of production-technological, executive, and labor discipline, for a period until the maximum term of the contract expires.

Thus, the employer will be obliged to extend the contract for long terms if both the employee and the employer make a mutual decision to extend the employment relationship based on the contract, but if the employer decides to terminate the employment relationship due to the expiration of the contract term, the employee will not have the right to demand its extension.

The approaches to the issue of bringing employees to material liability have been changed. Thus, the degree of material liability will not depend on the type of contract concluded with the employee: an employment contract or a contract. Article 261-2 of the Labor Code excludes the conditions on full material liability from the content of the contract. In addition, the concept of "actual damage" has been introduced, which means the loss, deterioration, or decrease in the value of property, which entails the need for the employer to incur expenses for

recovery, acquisition of property or other valuables, or to make excessive monetary payments.

Provisions have been established according to which fines levied from the employer shall not be reimbursed by employees. At the same time, the employer, at his discretion, may recover damages from the employee in the amount of up to three of his average monthly wages. In other cases, compensation for damages is made through court proceedings.

The grounds for termination of employment have also been affected by the changes. Now, an employment contract or agreement may be terminated for a single gross violation of labor duties by an employee (para. 7 of Art. 42 of the Labor Code), which include:

- absence from work (including absence from work for more than three hours during the working day);

- violations of production and technological, executive, or labor discipline, which resulted in damage to the organization in an amount exceeding three calculated average monthly wages of employees of the Republic of Belarus;

- causing property damage to the state, legal and (or) natural persons by the employee in connection with the performance of labor duties, established by a court decision that has entered into legal force;

- repeated (two or more times within six months) violation of the procedure established by law for considering appeals from citizens and legal entities, as well as unlawful refusal to consider appeals from citizens and legal entities within the competence of the relevant state body;

- unlawful bringing citizens and legal entities to justice;

- repeated (two or more times within six months) submission of incomplete or unreliable information to authorized bodies.

The issues of timely and objective resolution of labor disputes remain relevant. In this regard, Article 234 of the Labor Code has been supplemented with a new part, according to which individual labor disputes, one party to which is the head of an organization acting as an employee of the organization, are considered not by labor dispute commissions, but only by courts.

The competence of the labor dispute commission has been expanded (part 2 of article 236 of the Labor Code), which is empowered to consider labor disputes regarding the application of disciplinary measures, with the exception of dismissal.

In addition, labor disputes filed by employees regarding the employer's refusal to draw up an accident report or disagreement with its content can now be considered not only by the court but also by the Department of State Labor Inspection.

Prosecutor of the Department for Supervision of Legislation Enforcement and Legality of Legal Acts of the Regional Prosecutor's Office
Tatyana Ivanova