New Labour Code Provisions

As of January 25th, Romania has a new Labour Code.

Roxana Vasile, 26.01.2015, 13:16

As of January the 25th, Romania has a new Labour Code, which took effect after being signed by President Klaus Iohannis. According to the document, unpaid leaves and absences without appropriate reason, except for leaves of absence for professional training, will no longer be included in the calculation of length in service. As for sick leaves and parental leaves, they will no longer reduce the number of days of the annual leave an employee is entitled to. Secretary of State with the Labour Ministry, Codrin Scutaru, explains:

“If, for instance, you are entitled to 21 days of annual leave, in the past you would have 3 days taken out if you were on sick leaves for two months that year. Now this is no longer valid, you have your entire annual leave.”

If, for just reasons, an employee cannot take their annual leave, fully or in part, the employer has to grant the remaining days within 18 months, starting the next year, therefore there are fewer chances for people to lose their annual leave days. Not least, the wages of a temporary employee cannot be smaller than the wages of a permanent employee hired on the same position. However, this new Labour Code might very soon be revised again, because for the first time in Romania a citizen initiative is very likely to become a law. Just days ago, the initiative was approved by the Constitutional Court. Dumitru Costin, the leader of the National Trade Union Bloc, told Radio Romania that the proposal is designed to correct certain errors and to help young people get employment:

“We have worked on a Labour Code text that would actually ensure balance and respect in the relationship between employees and employers. Our initiative regulates the access to employment, eliminating a lot of loopholes in the current law, which primarily affected the young, making them vulnerable. It also seeks to clarify the relationships between employers and employees and, not least, to ensure transparency and clarity in the Romanian labour market.”

Under the law, a citizen initiative has to be signed by at least 100,000 eligible voters from at least one-quarter of the counties in Romania and from Bucharest. The initiative launched by the National Trade Union Bloc has been signed by 150,000 people and was praised by the president of the Constitutional Court of Romania, Augustin Zegrean, as an instance in which people were able to get organised, collect signatures and promote a very important piece of legislation.