BRATISLAVA, April 18, (WEBNOVINY) — Based on a compromise among social partners, determining norms of work consumption by employers could only be possible after an agreement with representatives of employees, said Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Jozef Mihal after a 2.5-hour tripartite session and thus made concession to trade unionists in this matter. “If no agreement on work consumption norms is sealed, a decision will be up to the work inspectorate as it is today,” said the minister. He also said that the tripartite improved the institute of reviewing occupational safety norms. “We have softened the previous proposal and agreed that employees’ representatives will still have to review and approve safety regulations in companies,” said Mihal. If employers and representatives of employees fail to come to agreement, the work inspectorate will decide in this matter as well.
Representatives of the government, employers and trade unions have discussed twenty of all 150 items proposed in the draft amendment to the Labor Code so far. “We still have a long marathon ahead to go,” said Mihal. The minister finds the definition of dependent work to be a very difficult issue. He said that trade unionists insist on revising the current definition of dependent work reasoning that this “bad definition” is being misused. The Ministry of Labor abandoned revising the definition of dependent work after discussions with employers on the raised comments. “Employers argued that hard and correct work proceeded stipulation of the current definition of dependent work in approved 2007,” concluded Mihal.
The Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs and Family proposes in the draft amendment to the Labor Code that a trial period depends on the employee’s wage. If the wage of an employee does not exceed 1.7-fold the minimum wage, which represents approximately EUR 539, the trial period is to last a month at maximum. Employees earning more than this limit will have a three-month trial period at the longest. As far as employees in managerial posts are concerned, the ministry wants to enable prolongation of their trial period to six to nine months. The ministry informs that trial periods of varying length are anchored in the current draft amendment to the Labor Code.
The Ministry of Labor further informed that the definition of the notice period would be revised. Based on the draft amendment to the Labor Code, the notice period should be cut to one to three months depending on the length of previous employment. “If employees are laid off on grounds on employer’s part, i.e. the employer is shutting down or transferring or employees become redundant in the process of making production more efficient or due to organization changes, but also when employees’ health condition worsens and does not allow them continue fulfilling their tasks, they will be entitled to a longer notice period,” informed the ministry. The notice period in these cases can last from two to five months depending on the length of previous employment. In addition to that, employees will be able to decide when they want to be paid a severance payment instead of sitting out a notice period.
The Labor Code will continue to guarantee employees‘ minimum wage in the future. However, instead of its different values, only one will be left, as the provision on minimum wage is dropped from the draft amendment to the Labor Code, the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs and Family told SITA news agency on Friday. “These wage benefits will be in the hands of the unions that could enforce them in collective bargaining,” informed the ministry.
SITA