Provisions and the adoption method of the Labour Law of the Republic of Srpska are unacceptable

Civil society organizations submitted to the National Assembly of the Republic of Srpska their comments regarding the draft version of the new Labour Law, by which they tried to emphasize numerous inconsistencies that may lead to the abuse and arbitrary interpretation of the provisions, at the expense of employees.

Banja Luka, 25th December 2015 – New provisions primarily prescribe the flexibility of a job position, and therefore its instability. An employment contract for a definite period of time shall become a model for concluding employment and there shall not be any limits concerning the number of concluded employment contracts for indefinite period of time. In this way the employer shall be given right to indefinitely conclude employment contracts for definite period of time without any obligation to conclude employment contract for indefinite period of time. In this way the employees will be forced to accept whatever is offered to them just to have their contracts extended.
The proposed Law prescribes 20 cases in which employer may terminate the employment contract, some of which include: when the employee does not achieve expected results or when the employee does not have necessary knowledge and skills to perform duties designated under the employment contract (this will be abused a lot), if the employee refuses the conclusion of the annex to the employment contract, if the employee’s behaviour may be characterized as the criminal offense conducted at work or in relation to work, regardless of the fact whether the criminal investigation has been initiated against the employee. Apart from the fact that the employer is thus given a possibility to dismiss employees randomly, this also provides options for the abuse so that the employer may use only his doubt that the employee conducted a criminal offense and dismiss the employee on the basis of that, regardless of whether the investigation has been initiated or not.

This Law also proposed new and controversial concepts of „layoff“ and „on-call duty“ for the employees which allow the employer to assign a layoff status to the employee due to the reduction of the scope of work and to make the employees be prepares for on-call duty and be available to employer outside of the working hours. It is disputable that the length of the layoff status is not defined, nor are the conditions under which the employees are assigned this status, which leaves space for different abuses, while, on the other hand, the obligation imposed on the employees to be available to the employer after the working hours, with no defined compensation, represents an interference in the human rights and the opportunity for the employers not to pay for this kind of work.

Perhaps the most controversial provisions of the new Law are those which refer to the provisions governing the salaries, wages and salary compensation, particularly legal regulation of the minimum wage. The new solution prescribes that the minimum salary shall be determined by the Government of the Republic of Srpska upon the proposal of the Economic and Social Council of the Republic of Srpska, and in case the Council does not submit its proposal, the RS Government shall decide on the minimum salary on its own, „taking into account the salaries movement, increase of production and living standards in the Republic of Srpska“, in which way the RS Government, with no social partners and precise legal definition, shall be given very broad jurisdiction over determining the minimum salary. At the same time, other salary compensation due to work and help to employees are just listed separately, with no defined minimum amount.

Civil society organizations believe that the proposed provisions of the Labour Law provide too much freedom to employers to interpret the Law on their own, and to arrange the conditions, rights and obligations by themselves, while on the other hand, the same provisions shorten deadlines for th employees to file their complaints to the courts or labour inspectorate. The trend of reducing the acquired employees’ rights compared to the current legal solution is also worrying, since it may increase the social instability.
Organizations which signed the comment also consider that this Law should not have been proposed for adoption under the urgent procedure, considering its importance and huge interest of the public, as well as its impact on the citizens of the Republic of Srpska. The Government of the Republic of Srpska again demonstrated its lack of interest for the interest and the will of the public. The Law governing economic and social rights should be the subject to a public discussion including all interested parties, and an urgent legislation procedure may be conducted only in exceptional cases that must be justified.

Press rls – 25 12 2015 2
Conclusions and comments on the proposal of the Labour Law of the Republic of Srpska