Minimum Working Conditions
The provisions of collective labour agreements and collective settlement agreements as well as the rules and procedures and statutes, have priority before the solutions in the Labour Code and the provisions of other acts and secondary legislation, as long as they are not less beneficial to the employees. It is also acceptable to grant employees’ rights that are more advantageous than those provided by the Labour Code. As of September 2020, new legislation is pending in the field of remote work, which is intended to replace regulations on telework – however, the Ministry of Labour has not yet provided any precise draft thereof.
Salary
An employee has a guaranteed minimum pay for his/her work, which is set pursuant to the principles and the procedure provided for in the Minimum Wage Act. If, however, a higher minimum salary has been set in collective labour agreements or the remuneration rules and procedures, then the employer is obligated to respect such agreements in place of the act. Apart from his/her basic pay, an employee may receive different allowances. Additional remuneration can be divided into those which are obligatory (e.g., extra pay for working overtime, extra pay for working at night), and those which are optional (e.g., extra pay for working shifts, service premiums).
Maximum Working Week
The working time may not exceed eight hours a day and forty hours in an average five-day working week in an accepted settlement period, which does not exceed four months (there are however, cases where settlement periods of up to 12 months may be used). The legislator has introduced a possibility to shorten or extend the settlement period and the working time in a day in accordance with the cases defined in the Labour Code. The weekly working time together with the overtime may not, however, exceed forty-eight hours in the accepted settlement period on average.
Overtime
Working overtime is accepted in two situations only: in the event when there is a necessity to conduct a rescue mission to protect human life or health, to protect property or the environment, or to remove a breakdown, or in the event of special employer’s needs. It is the employer who assesses whether there have occurred special needs which justify working overtime. The weekly working time together with the overtime may not, however, exceed forty-eight hours in the accepted settlement period on average. In the case of an annual limit, the Labour Code states that the number of overtime hours may not exceed one hundred and fifty hours in a calendar year. The maximum annual number of overtime hours is contingent on the need to maintain the maximum weekly number of working hours (on average, forty-eight hours per week in an average settlement period).
Employer’s Obligation to Provide a Healthy and Safe Workplace
The employer is obliged to protect the health and well-being of employees by ensuring conditions of health and safety at work, through the appropriate use of the achievements of science and technology.
Complaint Procedures
In case of breach of health and safety rules, employees can submit their objections to the health and safety at work service operating at the workplace. If the health and safety at work service does not take appropriate action, or if there is no health and safety at work service at the workplace, employees can submit their objections to the State Labour Inspection, which can penalise the employer. Employees cannot be discriminated due to the fact of submitting their objections to the health and safety at work service or the State Labour Inspection.