The Parliament of Ukraine plans to adopt the new Labour Code (the Code) at the next plenary session starting mid-December. The Code will replace the long-standing and quite outdated Soviet Labour Code of 1971, as well as a number of other legal acts and regulations which currently supplement the Labour Code of 1971.
Some of most significant provisions of the Code are discussed below.
Key features
- An employer will be prohibited from putting forward claims of a
discriminatory nature in recruitment ads or applicant interviews
(eg "women only"), or from demanding from applicants
information about their marital status.
- There will be no more work permit requirement as regards
expatriate top managers employed with Ukrainian companies having
foreign investments or expatriate heads (managers) of foreign
representative offices in Ukraine.
- There will be no more artificial difference between employment
contracts and employment agreements where the contract was just a
special (ie more flexible) form of the agreement. Currently, an
employment contract is allowed in cases explicitly provided by the
law, of which the most commonly used is employment of a company
director. Upon adoption of the Code, there will be just an
employment agreement allowing for most of provisions currently
limited to a contract form only.
- There is a considerable expansion of the circle of employees
who can assume full material responsibility towards the employer
while performing labour duties, but on the condition that such full
responsibility be explicitly set forth in the employment agreement
of a given employee.
- There will be a statutory regulation on the sending of an
employee on garden leave (ie temporary release from labour duties)
with more flexibility for an employer in deciding whether to pay a
salary to such employees.
- Several provisions protecting human rights are incorporated,
like an explicit ban on the discrimination of employees and sexual
harassment (eg sexual assault expressed verbally or
physically.
- The probationary period will be increased from the current
general level of three months to six months for top managerial
positions and also a strict requirement of the written form of
employment agreements. Currently a written employment agreement is
not mandatory provided the internal HR order on enrolment was
issued.
- There will be an increased list of grounds for termination of
employees, giving employers much more room to manoeuvre. The new
grounds will include: breach of confidentiality, breach of the
shareholders' rights by managers, a proposal from a trade
union, requirement of parents for employment of minors, and
more.
In summary, the new Code is aimed at streamlining market practices currently in place in Ukraine. It will also have to codify a number of regulations previously spread throughout specialised legal acts, some of which were also back-dated to Soviet times.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.