Right to weekly rest – DRAFT LAW amending the Law on Labor Relations

The Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, as a proposer, prepared a Draft-Draft Law on Amending the Law on Labor Relations.

According to the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, the purpose of adopting the Law on Amendments to the Law on Labor Relations is to better harmonize the private with professional life, by creating legal solutions to better protect the right to weekly rest and eliminate possible abuses in relation to to ensure the exercise of this right.

The proposer believes that this law will enable the creation of legal solutions for greater protection of the right to weekly rest, which will allow exceptions in certain activities and will eliminate possible abuses in terms of ensuring the use of this right.

According to the proposer, after analyzes, as well as in order to follow the modern international trends in the field of labor, the need arose to designate Sunday as a day of weekly rest for all, with certain exceptions in activities where the work process does not allow to interrupt .

The amendments were mainly made in Article 134 of the Law on Labor Relations, where paragraph 2 is changed and it is determined that Sunday is a day of weekly rest. The same article is supplemented with six new paragraphs, which stipulate that employers from certain industries can work on Sundays and that for them a day of weekly rest will be another day of the week (paragraph 3). An exception is provided for workers at trade employers, which will be regulated by the Law on Trade (paragraph 4). And in cases of natural accidents and accidents at the request of the employer, the employee is obliged to work on Sundays (paragraph 5). For weekly work, workers will receive a wage supplement of at least 50% for each hour of work, unless a higher amount of the allowance is established by law and collective agreement, as well as the right to a day off for the next seven days (paragraph 6). For weekly work, the employer is obliged to inform the State Labor Inspectorate (paragraph 7). The content, form and manner of reporting will be prescribed by the Minister of Labor and Social Policy (paragraph 9). In addition, the Minister in charge of the field of labor with a bylaw will define the ancillary activities and associated affairs (paragraph 8).

It is envisaged to supplement paragraph 3 of Article 106 with a salary supplement, as part of the third component of the salary for work on Sundays.

A new article is also added to the Law which determines the competence of a state labor inspector to impose a sanction in the form of a ban on work in case of acting contrary to Article 134 of the Law, as well as determining a legal remedy against the imposed sanction.

The amendments that are foreseen to be made with the adoption of the Law on Amendments to the Law on Labor would be applicable starting from January 1, 2022.

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