MR HASSAN ADEMOV
CHAIRMAN OF
LABOR COMMISSION,
SOCIAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC POLICY TO THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
REGARDING: Bill to amend and supplement the Labor Code, No. 502-01-38, submitted by the Council of Ministers on May 22, 2015.
DEAR MR ADEMOV,
In connection with the Labor Code Amendment submitted for discussion in the National Assembly, the Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria, taking into account the views expressed by its members, expresses the following position:
1. The proposed changes in Art. 107a of the Labor Code refer to employees working in the state administration in an employment relationship. Providing representative clothing for them would be an additional expense for the state budget, which is not justified, as long as it does not directly affect the performance of their functions. At the very least, it should be specified which categories of employees it is about and for what occasions this representative clothing will be.
2. The creation of a new art. 114a of the Labor Code, which regulates short-term seasonal work and the simplified hiring procedure only and only for companies with the main economic activity "Crop growing" is privileging one branch over all others that need to hire staff for short seasonal work – within a day or two.
Plant breeding as a concept is much broader than indicated in the text of the new art. 114a, para. 3 of the CT, because it refers not only to "fruits, vegetables and pink flowers", but also in relation to other essential oil crops ( e.g. lavender), in addition, cereals, fiber crops, oil crops, etc. are excluded in this case. Therefore, we believe that the text of the proposal under Art. 114a, paragraph 3 at the end - "only for harvesting fruits, vegetables and pink flowers" should be deleted.
If the norm is accepted as a pilot, it is necessary to determine a period of time during which it will operate, after which an analysis of the effectiveness of the implemented norm should be made and possibly introduced in other sectors.
3. In connection with the legal regulations for the creation of personnel files, it is necessary to specify exactly what documents must be stored in it. The way in which Art. 128b paragraph 2 of the Labor Code leaves room for interpretation by the control authorities. In all cases, the text must comply with the Personal Data Protection Act.
If the basis of this idea is the development and implementation of an "electronic work book" standard, we would support it. KRIB participated in the formed working groups, where the idea of creating a fast and reliable system for storage and exchange of labor insurance data, through which to optimize the processes and communication between businesses, state authorities and citizens in the field of human resources administration, was advocated.
4. In principle, we support proposals related to the possibility of introducing flexible working hours, but we express concerns about the proposed change of art. 139, paragraph 3. We do not support the proposal that the worker or employee himself, without the agreement and approval of his immediate supervisor, "determine his working hours within no more than 12 hours, so that at the end of each working week he has worked the statutory working hours". In our opinion, it would be more appropriate to amend the text by adding text that the worker or employee can express a preference as to exactly how to work their working hours outside the mandatory working hours, but must agree with their immediate supervisor, who will approved to avoid possible conflicts between colleagues (if no one wants to work in certain hours), between manager and worker or employee. Flexible working hours are a great option, but working hours must be negotiated and approved by your line manager. In the absence of coordination, conditions will be created for chaos and the impossibility of planning the execution of the specified work on time.
5. With the proposed change in art. 164, para. 1 and the repeal of art. 165, the right to additional leave for raising a child up to 2 years of age is actually given, regardless of the order of the child, thereby harmonizing the duration of maternity leave for the fourth and subsequent child with that for the first, second and third child.
With this change, once again the question arises as to how much paid annual leave should be taken for the time during which no effective work activity was performed. The discussion of this issue should not be delayed any longer, because under the current regulations there is an accumulation of leave on top of leave, on a different basis, which extends the legally defined period of leave due for pregnancy, childbirth and raising a child, as well as and on other grounds.
The texts of the Labor Code regarding the due paid annual leave should be clarified and it should be expressly provided that the right to paid annual leave arises only when time has actually been worked. Otherwise, the time of the worker's or employee's absence from work is unpredictable for the employer, and he cannot organize the work process in the enterprise depending on the real needs - deadlines for the completion of certain tasks, the need to attract other replacement specialists, etc.
6. In principle, we support the proposed amendment in Art. 192, para. 1, but with the proviso that "managerial functions" should be defined or defined as such in the job descriptions of the respective managers. In the absence of clarity, there is a danger of legal disputes with grounds for the imposition of the penalty by an incompetent authority.
7. The change in the texts of articles from 230 to art. 232 inclusive, where everywhere the "trainee" is replaced by "the worker or employee" or the word is replaced by a pronoun, is completely cosmetic and redundant. In addition, the replacement of the word with a pronoun in Art. 230, para. 1 of the CT will only bring ambiguities in the text, which should be avoided.
With respect,
Eugene Ivanov
Ex. director
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