The Parliament of Ukraine plans to adopt the new Labour Code (the Code) at the next plenary session starting mid-December. The Code will replace the long-standing and quite outdated Soviet Labour Code of 1971, as well as a number of other legal acts and regulations which currently supplement the Labour Code of 1971.

Some of most significant provisions of the Code are discussed below.

Key features

  • An employer will be prohibited from putting forward claims of a discriminatory nature in recruitment ads or applicant interviews (eg "women only"), or from demanding from applicants information about their marital status.
  • There will be no more work permit requirement as regards expatriate top managers employed with Ukrainian companies having foreign investments or expatriate heads (managers) of foreign representative offices in Ukraine.
  • There will be no more artificial difference between employment contracts and employment agreements where the contract was just a special (ie more flexible) form of the agreement. Currently, an employment contract is allowed in cases explicitly provided by the law, of which the most commonly used is employment of a company director. Upon adoption of the Code, there will be just an employment agreement allowing for most of provisions currently limited to a contract form only.
  • There is a considerable expansion of the circle of employees who can assume full material responsibility towards the employer while performing labour duties, but on the condition that such full responsibility be explicitly set forth in the employment agreement of a given employee.
  • There will be a statutory regulation on the sending of an employee on garden leave (ie temporary release from labour duties) with more flexibility for an employer in deciding whether to pay a salary to such employees.
  • Several provisions protecting human rights are incorporated, like an explicit ban on the discrimination of employees and sexual harassment (eg sexual assault expressed verbally or physically.
  • The probationary period will be increased from the current general level of three months to six months for top managerial positions and also a strict requirement of the written form of employment agreements. Currently a written employment agreement is not mandatory provided the internal HR order on enrolment was issued.
  • There will be an increased list of grounds for termination of employees, giving employers much more room to manoeuvre. The new grounds will include: breach of confidentiality, breach of the shareholders' rights by managers, a proposal from a trade union, requirement of parents for employment of minors, and more.

In summary, the new Code is aimed at streamlining market practices currently in place in Ukraine. It will also have to codify a number of regulations previously spread throughout specialised legal acts, some of which were also back-dated to Soviet times.

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