Employers are required to accurately record the time worked by the persons employed under part-time contracts as well as the start and end time of their work program.
If the inspectors find out that the duration set in the contract is exceeded, employers risk a maximum fine of 10,000 lei, according to a draft amendment to the Labour Code.
The bill has been launched for debated on the Labour Ministry’s website and redefines the undeclared work to include forms of evasion that do not exist now in the legislation.
According to the Labour Code, each part-time contract must expressly state the prohibition of the extra work.
The law prohibits overtime with two exceptions:
- In cases of force majeure
- For urgent work aimed to prevent accidents or eliminate their consequences
In practice, authorities have found that these contracts are used by employers to pay fewer taxes to the state – employees work full time but are formally paid for four hours, for instance.
The difference for the working time is paid in the envelope, which means lower budget contributions and lower pensions for the employees who accept these procedures.
If the draft law debated by the Ministry of Labour is approved, partially undeclared work will be sanctioned similarly to the undeclared work. „Allowing an employee to work beyond the work program set in the individual part-time employment contracts (will be sanctioned) with a fine from 5,000 lei to 10,000 lei for each person identified „, says the bill.
Now the Labour Code provides for fines between 1,500 and 3,000 lei.
To clarify the issue, the bill redefines undeclared work by supplementing the situations mentioned in Article 16 (1) of the Labour Code:
- Allowing a person to work without the conclusion of the individual employment contract on the day preceding the start of the activity
- Not registering the employment relationship in the general record of employees the day before the start of the activity, at the latest
- Allowing an employee to work during the period when she has the individual labour contract suspended
- Allowing an employee to work beyond the work program set in the individual part time employment contracts
Changes include the novelty that employers who do not comply with the law are allowed to pay only half of the fine if they pay it within 48 hours of the report being finalized /communicated by the inspectors.
Detailed record of work schedule
The bill also provides for a more rigorous and detailed record of the hours worked by employees with part-time contracts.
„We believe that such evidence is necessary to allow for the verification of the hours actually worked by the employees, given that in many situations the record of the work time that the employer presents, usually following an audit at the workplace, does not match the real situation,” explain the experts who drafted the bill.
Now, the law forces the employer to keep a record, but without the details that will be required in the future:
- Daily records of working hours
- Recording the time when the employee started the activity and when completed the activity
The fine for not keeping this record maintains between 1,500 – 3,000 lei.
The employment relationship can be proven in court by any means of proof
„If the individual employment contract has not been concluded in writing, it is presumed to have been concluded for an indefinite period and the parties can prove the contractual provisions and the services performed by any other means of proof”, the draft law also says.
This means that the employment relationship can be proven in court by any other means of proof and the contract will be considered as being for an indefinite period so that an employee cannot be fired but under the conditions stipulated for those with the Individual Employment Contract (CIM).
According to a decision issued last year by the High Court of Cassation and Justice, those who worked without a CIM may ask for the recognition of the employment relationship even after they changed their job.
Part-time work taxation, at level of minimum national wage for full-time
This is the second measure initiated by Sorin Grindeanu government in the hope that it will bring to the surface the jobs with full-time work that generate evasion.
As of 1 July, part-time work will be taxed the same as full-time work – there will be contributions paid at the level of the full-time work for the minimum national wage, no matter if it is about 2, 4 or more hours worked.
„Today, in Romania there are 360,000 part-time employment contracts as sole sources of income. Here we are talking about a grey area. The contract is made for a small amount, but it is unlikely that someone can make a living with (such – editor’s note) an income,” said the Finance Minister Viorel Stefan last month when he announced the measure.
Official data shows that in December 2016 there were 712,036 people having such contracts, of which about half were living only with this source of income, while others also had either a full-time contract or several part-time contracts.
Of the total of over 712,000 part-time contracts, 587,158 were paid up to 1,250 lei, the minimum national wage at that time. More precisely, the average salary for these 587,158 contracts was 543 lei.
Also:
- 34,151 were paid amounts between 1,250 and 1,500 lei
- 27,834 – between 1,501 and 2,000 lei
- Approximately 45,000 employees had wages between 2,000 and 4,000 lei
- Almost 12,000 received between 4,000 and 10,000 lei
- 1,014 people – more than 15,000 lei
