BRATISLAVA, July 13, (WEBNOVINY) — Slovak lawmakers gave the go-ahead to the Labor Code revision on Wednesday in the final third reading. Seventy-four of one hundred forty-four deputies present voted in its favor and seventy legislators were opposed. Four deputies of the Ordinary People group, Dusan Svantner (SNS) and Igor Sidor (MOST-HID) were absent during the vote. If President Ivan Gasparovic seals it, the new Labor Code will take effect on September 1, 2011.
The new legislation maintains provisions on minimum wage entitlement. Trade unions, however, will face new rules. If a trade union organization wants to represent all employees, when asked by the employer it will have to document that at least 30 percent of employees are its members. Benefits agreed upon during collective bargaining will not apply to top managers at organizations governed by the law on services in public interest.
The revision also sets rules for an employee and an employer during the trial period. It will be possible to terminate employment in writing for any reason or even without providing reasons for such decision during a trial period. On the contrary, dismissal of a pregnant or breastfeeding woman and those nine months after childbirth during trial period will be more difficult. This will be possible only in extraordinary cases that do not involve pregnant women or mothers, whereby the reasons for the dismissal will have to be clarified in writing. Moreover, employees will be allowed to agree with their employer upon working on night duties for two weeks in a row.
Lawmakers also supported the concept of an account of worked hours with an option to accumulate both positive and negative hours, proposed by the liberal party SaS. This will allow employers to react better to needs of clients and simplify the administration related to accumulation of worked hours, which otherwise would be defined as overtime. The new Labor Code caps the fee for service mediation via meal vouchers at 3 percent of the value mentioned on the respective voucher.
Deputies took into consideration some requirements from the petition filed by nurses and midwives. Fifty-year old medical staffers will be allowed to reject overtime work and night duties. Additionally, they will be given five free days a year for continual education but will not lose their salary for this period. However, the proposal to set the minimum wage entitlement of nurses and midwives was voted down.
From the age of thirty-three, all employees will be entitled to five weeks of paid leave. It will be possible to extend a definite period employment contract three times at the most, but the respective period must not exceed there years. The revision lifts concurrence of the period of notice and severance pay. Parliamentary deputies did not support an amending proposal submitted by KDH deputy Monika Gibalova that would in general enable laying off an employee or a civil servant after the individual fulfills all eligibility criteria to an old-age pension.
SITA