Executive takes responsibility for Labour Code on 8 March

The representatives of the two Chambers of Parliament decided that the Executive will take responsibility for the Labour Code on 8 March, at 10.

The deputies and senators will have time to put forward a series of amendments to the Labour Code until Friday, Prime Minister Emil Boc stated.

The alterations to the labour relations regulations stirred up new waves of controversy and conflict among trade unions.

They are determined not to give up on several provisions that, according to some sociologists, offer employees advantage over employers.

Moreover, many employers’ organisations have repeatedly requested for the relation between employers and potential employees to be simplified.

Generating employment was the main argument that the Prime Minister deployed in favour of the project he is willing to take responsibility for.

The Labour Code was altered with the purpose to make labour market more flexible and, according to Prime Minister Emil Boc, the current version of the project will create meaningful employment.

This argument is also used by the Executive to justify the increase in the duration of the fixed-term collective employment contracts, from 24 to 36 months.

Emil Boc claims that the employer will have the possibility to develop its own employee assessment criteria in order to facilitate labour performance, and the trial period will increase to 90 and 120 days for employees that apply for executive and leading positions so that the employer could assess the potential employee’s skills thoroughly.

The current code facilitates layoffs and delays the hiring process

However, trade unions and most employers’ organisations complained about all these provisions, claiming that the current code facilitates layoffs and delays the hiring process.

Trade unions claim that introducing performance criteria is the employer’s exclusive right, and employees risk to be laid-off any minute.

During the trial period, the employer can hire how many persons they wish and can dispose of them without being verified.

Additionally, trade unions consider that employment contracts on an indefinite period will no longer exist, and most employees will have fixed-term employment contracts, because the provision according to which after there successive fixed-term contracts signed for the same position, the employer is obliged to hire that person for an indefinite period, is removed from the code.

However, trade unions and employers’ organisations complain the most about the removal of the collective employment contracts from the Labour Code.

However, Prime Minister Emil Boc stated that, following the request of the National Union for the Progress of Romania, the collective employment contracts would continue to exist, but they would be regulated by a special law that would be approved after the approval of the Labour .

Trade unions threat to go on strike

Still, social partners consider that the Executive is hasting to adopt such an important law and this is why they threaten to go on strike.

"We think employees will have a lot to lose, and we have to decide whether we should go on organising protests or go on strike at the end of the month, according to plan."

"We should proceed as soon as possible because this is the only way to put an end to certain reactions coming from the Government. By altering the Labour Code, they only turn ‘black’ labour into ‘grey’ labour and provide political party with more money", the vice-president of the National Union Bloc, Ioan Pisc stated.

The Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania put forward a series of amendments to the Labour Code, requesting that whenever collective layoffs were conducted the employees that were being laid off should get priority, taking into account their professional skills as well.

Apart from this, DAHR requested that the new legislation should set working under no individual employment contract as a contravention not as a crime.

Most employers’ organisations claim that the actual project of the Labour Code lacks provisions that should regulate the employee-employer relation and as a result this project will destroy the structure of the labour market.

"Apparently the minimum salary is the only law that remains as far as labour market in Romania at this moment is regarded."

"You might see companies where officially all or most employees receive minimum salaries, which delays the moment when the Government will afford to reduce labour market taxation because, by adopting this version of the Labour Code they will receive less money, less contributions to the Health Insurance House, to the pension fund or unemployment fund and will not be able to reduce taxation, an objective highly necessary for the Romanian financial recovery," the president of the General Union of Romanian industrialists 1903, Cezar Corâci, stated.

Translated by: Raluca Mizdrea

MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University