Labor legislation of Ukraine undergoes significant changes during wartime

During the period of hostilities in Ukraine, several laws were introduced, which led to significant changes in labor legislation . These changes are associated with challenges such as job losses, migration and relocation of enterprises. However, questions remain about the extent to which these steps contribute to labor market adaptation and what their consequences may be.

For example, the law on optimization of labor relations introduced additional simplified grounds for dismissal of workers at the initiative of employers and actually allowed to increase the working week to 60 hours, and the mobilized worker did not retain the average salary.

According to this law, it is possible to dismiss an employee during martial law if:

• the employer cannot provide the employee with the workload specified in the employment contract due to the destruction (lack of) production, organizational and technical conditions, means of production or property of the employer as a result of hostilities;
• the employee has been absent from work for four months and there is no information about the reasons for his absence.

At the same time, you can notify an employee of dismissal not two months in advance, as was before, but only ten days in advance.

In addition, legislators also changed the deadlines for appealing the actions of employers. Previously, claims were open-ended, but now their filing is limited to three months from the date of recording violations of working conditions.

At the same time, employers were allowed to increase the working hours - up to 60 hours a week, but it was 40. By the way, 60 working hours a week is the format of a 10-hour working day with one day off, or working 8.5 hours a day with no days off at all . In the traditional five-day format, you will have to work 12 hours a day.

Another important innovation concerned mobilized workers. Before the adoption of the mentioned law, they were assigned a job and an average salary. And now employers have been exempted from paying mobilized employees.

The law also provides for the execution of all documents on labor relations in electronic form, including messages about the dismissal of an employee. In this case, the employer must indicate which communication channel or messenger will be considered official.

All this would make sense if the Ukrainian economy began to adapt to military needs, and we were talking about the work of military-industrial complex enterprises or providing the basic needs of the front. But, unfortunately, we do not see these changes. It is only obvious that employers are gaining more and more rights in the market, which is already not on the side of employees. In a strange way, “optimization” makes life easier exclusively for employers, directly by limiting labor rights and social protection of employees.

In addition, employers received the right to send their employees on leave without pay during martial law, that is, at their own expense, and without limiting the duration of such leaves.

This poses a significant risk for workers. In general, they need to be extremely careful with vacations at their own expense, because the amount of the employee’s remuneration and the monthly payment of insurance premiums affect the employee’s insurance record. Both the length of service and the regularity of payment of contributions to the insurance system are important when assigning a worker’s future pension.

The main difference between insurance experience and labor experience is that the presence of insurance experience is directly related to the payment of insurance premiums for compulsory state pension insurance.

If an employee has written an application for leave without pay for a whole month or more (during martial law), such an employee is not accrued wages, which means there is no basis for the calculation and payment of a single social contribution (insurance contribution), and, as a result, the insurance period for the corresponding unpaid months will not be taken into account when assigning a pension.

If an employee falls ill during unpaid leave, then temporary disability assistance is also not provided to such an employee.

From the current legislative norms it can be seen that an employee during a long leave without pay for a period of more than a month is less socially protected. The employee should definitely pay attention to this and take into account that from the point of view of future prospects, it is not always advisable to “hold on to your place” at any cost.

Unfortunately, changes in labor legislation were not limited to the above-mentioned innovations. On top of that, the law to simplify the regulation of labor relations in the field of small and medium-sized businesses has actually abolished the mandatory nature of labor law for those who work in private enterprises with less than 250 employees. The law allows for “termination of an employment contract at the employer’s own request” and “unilateral change by the employer of essential working conditions” - both of which violate ILO conventions and EU directives.

In particular, this law provides for:

• destruction of trade union immunity - the consent of the trade union is not required for dismissal and overtime work;
• simplification of dismissals - no reasons will be needed to dismiss employees;
• unstable employment - there are no restrictions on the use of fixed-term contracts;
• legalization of fines and a ban on sick leave - the employment contract will be able to provide for additional types of employee responsibilities and working out sick time;
• irresponsibility of the employer for labor safety - employment contracts may establish exceptions to labor safety standards.
• These regulations are aimed at eroding the labor rights of almost 70% of workers. In conditions when the labor market is feverish, and a significant proportion of the population is left without work, the lack of rights of hired workers will not bring prosperity to small and medium-sized businesses, which are much more in need of administrative and regulatory incentives for development.

  Surprisingly, all of the listed legislative changes, which fundamentally and not for the better change the operating conditions of the labor market, did not even cause public indignation, let alone resistance. Thus, the European Union regularly expresses concern about radical labor reforms and calls on the Ukrainian government to bring reforms into line with international labor standards and the principles of social dialogue. He is concerned about current trends, because in terms of the level of compliance of candidate countries with EU requirements in social policy and employment, Ukraine received the lowest score. Consequently, in the future this component of European integration will require considerable effort. But here in Ukraine, we must think not only about this, but also about the overall economic development of our country, which is impossible without thoughtful solutions to the problems facing our labor market. There is no economy without people, but, unfortunately, people are the last thing our legislators and officials think about.