- Amendments to the Labour Code
The Government Emergency Ordinance no. 53/2017, applicable starting with August 7, 2017, brings a series of significant amendments to the Romanian Labour Code, most of them being intended to reduce the undeclared work and to allow the authorities to properly check if the employers „benefit” of undeclared work.
Although performing the work without concluding and properly registering a written employment agreement is sanctioned from a long time, for the first time the Romanian Labour Code introduces the notion of „undeclared work”.
Thus, according to the new enactment, one of following factual situations are considered undeclared work:
(a) allowing the employee to work in lack of a written employment agreement concluded a day prior to the start of activity;
(b) allowing the employee to work without registering his/her employment agreement with the Employees Electronic Registry at least a day prior to the start of activity;
(c) allowing the employee to work during the suspension of his/her employment agreement;
(d) allowing the employee to work outside the working hours established in the part-time employment agreement.
The employer may be sanctioned for undeclared work with a fine of RON 20,000 for each person that is in any of the situations provided at point (a), (b) and (c) above and with a fine of RON 10,000 for every part-time employee in case of the situation provided at point (d) above (working outside working hours).
Moreover, the labour authorities may dispose the cessation of the activity within the relevant workplace in case there are employees providing work during the suspension of their employment agreement or without having concluded or registered employment agreements. Such measure may be disposed only after prior consultation of the trade union confederation and employers’ confederation representative at the national level.
In order to enable the authorities to check undeclared work situations, the records of the daily working hours must indicate also the start and the end hours of the working schedule, otherwise the employer may be sanctioned by fine ranging between RON 1,500 – RON 3,000.
A new obligation incumbent to the employer is the one to keep copies of the individual labor agreements at the workplace where employees are performing their work. The failure to observe such obligation is sanctioned with a fine of RON 10,000.
As opposed to the prior regulations which allowed concluding and registering an addendum to the employment agreement within 20 business days as of the date when the amendment occurred, now it is mandatory to conclude and register the addendum to the employment agreement before the amendment occurs.
- Indemnity for raising the child
The story of the indemnity for raising the child never ends. One year ago, was eliminated the maximum cap of such indemnity and mothers were entitled to a monthly indemnity of 85% from the average incomes they obtained a certain period before giving birth to a child. Once again, such rule was changed by the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 55/2017 which capped the indemnity for raising the child to maximum RON 8,500. The indemnity for raising the child is capped starting with the rights related to September 2017.
