The new Labor Code: between necessity and controversy

The former Labor Code was outdated and needed to change, agreed the HR specialists and attorneys present at the Employment event organized by Business Review. The presence of Valentin Mocanu, state secretary at the Ministry of Labor, Family and Social protection was a pretext for long and heated debates, although his expectations are that “in two-three years, the results will be positive”.

Some of the hottest topics raised at the BR event were the most radical changes that the freshly adopted code has brought. Among these, easier to conclude fixed-term labor contracts, individual work performance objectives, internships for recent graduates, the prevalence of performance-based selection criteria over collective criteria in collective redundancies, longer resignation notices, lower protection of employees’ representatives and union leaders, the compensation of overtime with paid free hours as well as the longer resignation notices.

One of the most controversial issues among the estimated 100 attendees of the BR event was the new code’s requirement of stricter and more precise formulations of an employee’s responsibilities and attributions within an organization. These attributions will later be used for evaluation purposes later on and they will also need to be introduced in the company’s internal regulations. HR managers in the audience raised questions concerning these criteria’s negotiability between employees and employers. “Certain aspects will be individually debated with each employee, which is another result of the renouncement of collective labor contracts”, stated Mocanu.

Another hot aspect at the BR event organized on May 5 was that of union leaders and the new tie-breakers in case of collective redundancies. The issue was raised during the second session of the event, with speakers pointing out that the activity of a union leader will not stop with cease of his or her work contract. Cases in the past have shown union leaders obtaining in court their right to maintain a position made redundant; what will happen now remains to be seen.

“The most important document that an employer now holds is the internal regulation”, said Marilena Balabuti, head of Legislation/Litigation department, Ministry of Labor, Family and Social Protection Labor Inspection Bucharest, during the third workshop of the event organized by Salans. Another important issue that came into discussion during this session was the fact that all employees need now to be taken into evidence by the Revisal software and that work cards will disappear. “I think that everybody is happy with the disappearance of work cards”, Balabuti concluded on the matter.