On January 25th, 2015 Law no. 12/2015 (hereinafter “the Law”) for the amendment and completion of the Labour Code has entered into force, introducing new provisions as well as eliminating or modifying certain provisions of the Labour Code. Hereto as follows:
a) Amendments Regarding The Annual Leave
According to the provisions of the Law, four new situations (i.e. maternity leave, sick leave, maternal risk leave, nursing of a sick child leave) are going to be considered periods of activity in order to determine the amount of the annual leave. The annual leave is going to be interrupted in case of occurrence of any of the four situations, whereas the outstanding leave shall be taken after the particular leave has elapsed or it shall be rescheduled, as the case may be.
Even if the sick leave is maintained during a period of a whole calendar year, the employee is still going to be entitled to annual leave for that particular year. The outstanding leave shall be taken within 18 months from the year following the one the employee has been on sick leave.
Also a novelty is the fact that, in case the employee was unable to effectuate the annual leave the year it is granted, for justified reasons, the outstanding annual leave can be taken during a period of 18 months from the year following the one of the employee’s entitlement to annual leave.
b) Payment Rights Of The Temporary Agency Workers
The salary of the temporary agency worker cannot be lower than the salary paid to the users‘ employee that carries out an identical or similar activity. By this amendment, the Romanian Labour Code has been harmonized with the provisions of Directive 2008/104/EC on temporary agency work, reintroducing the principle of equal treatment for temporary agency workers.
In case the user undertaking does not have such an employee, the salary of the temporary agency worker will be determined taking into account the salary of a person employed by individual employment agreement and providing the same or similar work as specified in the collective labor contract.
c) The Period That Is Considered Work Seniority
Starting with 25st January 2015, both the period when the employee was on unjustified leave of absence or on unpaid leave of absence are going to be reduced from the total period of work seniority.
As an exception, the unpaid leave for professional training is not going to be excluded, thus still representing work seniority.