Employers consider some provisions of Labor Code mismatch world treaties

The National Confederation of Moldovan Employers (NCME) considers some provisions of the Labor Code do not correspond to the international conventions Moldova signed. The appreciation especially refers to the provisions on social partnership, Info-Prim Neo reports. “The rights of the Trade Unions to requrie prevail in many articles of the Labor Code compared with the employers’ obligations to conform with and of the employees to execute,” says the head of the Legal and Social Department of the NCME, Mefodie Varlan. In his opinion, there are large drawbacks in the contents of the Code. Mefodie Varlan refers to article 87 on dismissing the employee upon the initiative of the employer which provides for many cases when the dismissal may be made “only with the agreement of the Trade Unions.” Article 87 also implies cases when the dismissal is impossible even though the employee cannot perform a certain job, because of poor health. “This means the Trade Unions are entitled to doubt even the conclusion of a specialized medical board, which would issue the respective certificate,” says the Employers’ representative. According to Mefodie Varlan, the agreement of the Unions is required even when the employee is dismissed because of repeatedly breaching the labor discipline. “The question rises: where is the equality of the social partners before the law, as provided in Article 156 of the Constitution? Why does a Union member have a certain protection degree, and an employee who’s not a member -- another?” Varlan states. He says the wordings “upon mutual agreement with the Trade Unions” or „with the Trade Unions’ agreement” imply a way of interfering into the employer’s right to property, especially when it comes to paying the employees, distributing bonuses and other stimuli to employees. “Drafting the Regulation on distributing these stimuli on mutual agreement with the Trade Unions (article 138) seems unnatural, as the money belongs to the employer and he knows better how it should be managed and distributed,” believes the employers’ representative. According the NCME’s lawyer, articles 388, 389 and partially 390, referring to the status of the Trade Unions leader, to the guarantees for the Trade Unions leader are puzzling. “His status practically is equal to the one of a public servant or of the local elected. The Unions leader cannot be sanctioned, dismissed during two years upon completion of mandate,” Mefodie Varlan says. According to him, not only certain provisions of the Labor Code prove some sort of thinking inertia, but other laws as well. The Law on Trade Unions forbids the managers of the entities where there are no Trade Union organizations to participate in the commissions for collective consultations and negotiations.