Employment law: the key rights and duties of workers and employers

What actually makes a relationship one of employment

The label on a contract does not determine its character. The Labour Code describes the employment relationship through a set of factual features: the worker performs work of a defined type, personally, at a place and time set by the employer, under the employer's direction, and the employer pays for readiness to work and for performing it — not for a result. Where those features occur together, there is an employment relationship, even if the parties signed a services contract or a B2B arrangement.

The distinction has measurable consequences. A contract of employment triggers the full package of guarantees: minimum pay, paid leave, protection against unjustified termination, overtime premiums, rest periods. Under civil-law contracts most of these do not apply. That is why the National Labour Inspectorate and the labour courts examine how the work is actually carried out rather than what the parties declared.

Employee rights that cannot be waived

The rule in Article 18 of the Labour Code is straightforward: contractual provisions less favourable to the employee than employment law are void, and statutory provisions apply in their place. An employee therefore cannot effectively waive the right to remuneration or agree to less leave than the statutory entitlement — even by signing such a document voluntarily.

• Remuneration — paid at least monthly, on a fixed date set in advance, and not below the statutory minimum. The right to pay can be neither waived nor transferred.
• Rest — 20 or 26 days of annual leave depending on length of service, paid, and as a rule including one uninterrupted period of at least 14 days each year.
• Safe working conditions — including the right to stop work where conditions pose a direct threat to life or health.
• Equal treatment — a prohibition on discrimination in employment and a right to compensation of no less than the minimum wage where it is breached.
• Respect for dignity and protection of personal rights, including privacy of work correspondence within the limits set by monitoring rules.
• Parental entitlements — maternity, parental, paternity and childcare leave, with employment protection during the associated periods.

Employee duties

Mirroring those entitlements, the Labour Code sets out a catalogue of obligations. An employee must perform work conscientiously and carefully and follow managers' instructions — but only those that concern the work and are not contrary to law or to the contract. An instruction that crosses that line is not binding, and refusing to carry it out cannot ground a disciplinary penalty.

Beyond that: observing working time and workplace rules, health and safety and fire regulations, taking care of the employer's property, keeping confidential information whose disclosure could cause the employer loss, and observing principles of social conduct. A separate category is the non-competition covenant — it requires its own written agreement, and where it is to apply after employment ends, compensation for the employee as well.

An instruction binds the employee within the limits of the contract and the law. Outside those limits it stops being an instruction and becomes a demand the employee may decline.

Employer duties go beyond paying wages

Article 94 of the Labour Code lists the organisational duties employers most often overlook: familiarising the employee with the scope of duties and how the work is to be done, organising work so that working time is used properly, counteracting discrimination and bullying, keeping personnel records, facilitating professional development, and issuing an employment certificate on time.

Information duties arise on hiring as well. The employee should receive written information about the terms of employment — daily and weekly working-time norms, the frequency of payment, the leave entitlement, the notice period and the rules on overtime. Failing to provide it is an offence against employee rights.

The employer's managerial powers

The relationship runs both ways. The employer may organise the work process, set rosters, account for results, enforce workplace rules and impose disciplinary penalties: a reprimand, a formal warning and, in defined cases, a fine. It may also require overtime where the workplace has particular needs or a rescue operation is necessary, and in justified situations recall an employee from leave while covering the cost of that decision.

Each of these powers has a limit. A disciplinary penalty requires that the employee be heard first and cannot be imposed more than two weeks after the employer learns of the breach. Overtime is subject to an annual cap and to mandatory compensation — either a premium or time off.

The most common points of dispute

1. Allowing someone to start work without written confirmation of the terms of employment beforehand.
2. Working-time records kept as a formality, ignoring instructions carried out after hours and remote work.
3. No current occupational health checks or safety training while the person is nonetheless put to work.
4. Rosters planned without the daily (11 hours) and weekly (35 hours) rest periods.
5. Refusing on-demand leave in situations where the rules give the employer no such discretion.

Most employment disputes begin not with bad faith but with disorganised paperwork. Workplace rules, current job descriptions and reliable working-time records decide cases in court far more often than the parties' assertions.