Employment Flash News No. 1/2015
Legislation
Amendments to the Labour Code
Law no. 12/2015 setting forth the amendment and completion of Law no. 53/2003 – Labour Code was published within the Official Gazette no. 52 on 22 January 2015.
(i) News on the length in service
The new legal provisions expressly state that unmotivated absences and unpaid leave will be subtracted from the length of service, with the exception of unpaid leave for professional training.
(ii) News on the termination by law of the individual labour contract
According to the new provisions, in the case of grade I or II of invalidity, the individual labour contract shall terminate by virtue of law on the date when the medical decision regarding the working capacity was comunicated, as opposed to the previous provisions in which the termination occured on the date the pension decision was comunicated.
(iii) News on temporary employee’s salary rights
The new legal provisions are setting forth that the salary received by the temporary employee for each mission cannot be lower than the one received by the user’s employee which performs the same work or a similar one. To the extent the user does not have such an employee, the salary received by the temporary employee will be established taking into consideration the salary received by an employee hired through an individual labour contract which performs the same work or a similar one, as determined within the collective labour agreement applicable at the user’s level.
(iv) News on annual leave
According to the new legal provisions, when establishing the duration of annual leave, the medical leave, maternity leave, maternal risk leave and child care leave will be considered periods of performed activity. If the medical leave, maternity leave, maternal risk leave or child care leave occured during the annual leave, it will be interrupted, and the employee will undertake the remaining days of annual leave after the medical leave, maternity leave, maternal risk leave and child care leave will stop, and, if not possible, the remaining days will be rescheduled.
The employee has the right to annual leave even if the medical leave will continue, according to the law, for the entire period of one year, the employer being obliged to provide the annual leave within 18 months as of the year when the employee was in medical leave.
Moreover, if the employee, for legitimate reasons, cannot undertake the entire annual leave or a part of it, which he/she was entitled to in the respective year, with the consent of the employee the employer is obliged to grant the untaken leave within 18 months starting the next year, as opposed to the previous regulations in which the period of time mentioned above was 1 year.
Government Decision no. 23/2015 for the approval of Regulations for applying Law no. 142/1998 regarding the award of meal tickets has been published within the Official Gazette no. 54 dated January 22, 2015.
The new Regulations were adopted in order to be in accordance with the amendments on Law no. 142/1998 made by Law no. 291/2013, which introduced the electronic meal vouchers.
The new Regulations are setting forth, among others, rules regarding new provisions who will have to be included in the agreements between the employer and the issuing company, the period of validity and the granting procedure of paper and electronic meal vouchers.
