Romanian labour legislation is currently under debate and, if approved, is expected to enter into force in the first quarter of 2011. The amendments to the Labour Code are controversial as they provide significantly less favourable measures for employees.

Some of the main amendments to the Romanian Labour Code, as proposed under the Romanian Ministry of Labor December 10, 2010 draft law on amending the Romanian Labour Code are provided below:

Conclusion and termination of the individual employment agreement

  • the written form of the individual employment agreement will become mandatory;
  • the employer will be able to unilaterally terminate a non-competition clause;
  • there shall be a maximum trial period of 45 days for ordinary positions and 120 days for management positions. Trial periods may be terminated without notice;
  • there shall be no limitation on the maximum number of employees who can be hired for the same position on successive trial periods;
  • the death or dissolution of the employer shall constitute grounds for the termination by law of the individual employment agreement;
  • the maximum period of fixed term individual employment agreements shall be increased to 36 months, and the limitations on the maximum number of such agreements which can be concluded between the same parties shall be removed;
  • the termination notice in the case of resignation shall be increased to at least 20 working days for ordinary positions and at least 45 working days for management positions;
  • in the case of collective dismissal, the employer may, at any time, hire persons other than the dismissed employees for the same positions.

Vacation

  • the annual vacation can be split upon the employees request, provided that one of the vacation periods is at least 10 working days in length

Overtime

  • overtime shall be compensated with remunerated non-working hours within 60 days of completion of that overtime

Disputes

the provisions according to which the employer bears the burden of proof in labour disputes shall be repealed. Consequently, the claimant shall bear the burden of proof.

Please note that the above-mentioned amendments to the Romanian Labour Code are not in force, being currently subject to debate between government, unions and employers associations. As a result, such amendments may suffer additional alterations. The aforementioned text is deemed for information purposes only, and must not be construed as legal advice, nor relied upon as enforceable legislation.

This article was written for Law-Now, CMS Cameron McKenna's free online information service. To register for Law-Now, please go to www.law-now.com/law-now/mondaq

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The original publication date for this article was 26/01/2011.