“The draft federal law “On amendments to Article 135 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation” (hereinafter referred to as the draft law) was prepared to give effect to the employee’s right to timely and full payment of fair wages that guarantee a dignified human life and existence for him and his family,” says the explanatory note of the bill.
Previously, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation issued a ruling according to which the second part of Article 135 of the Labor Code was recognized as incompatible with the Constitution of the Russian Federation to the extent that it gives rise to the possibility of establishment arbitrary at the local level of rules for calculating individual payments included in salaries (mainly bonuses) and therefore, in conjunction with the relevant provisions of the collective agreement and (or) local regulations, allows, without taking into account the quantity and quality of work performed, as well as other objective criteria, to reduce the salary of an employee who has an outstanding (unpaid) disciplinary sanction. Therefore, it is stipulated that the consideration of a disciplinary sanction when calculating bonuses cannot result in a reduction of the employee’s monthly salary by more than 20 percent.
In this way, the employee will be protected from arbitrary reduction of the payments he has earned, even when participating in the performance of specific work (provision of services), for example, paid medical services, services under compulsory voluntary health insurance, etc If adopted, the bill will come into force on September 1, 2024. “In the Russian economy, it is a very common practice to use the so-called variable part in the remuneration system. That is, employers divide salary into salary “base and bonuses. In this case, the base salary can be 10, 20, or 30% of the total salary.” This is a unique way to minimize risk. “I decided to save money on employees and not pay a bonus, but in court it is very difficult to prove that the employee is right, since employers try not to set the conditions for paying bonuses,” Alexander Safonov, professor of the Financial University of the Government of the Russian Federation.
Now, with the amendments to the Labor Code, it will be more difficult for employers to “save” on bonuses. “The Constitutional Court noted that the practice in which an employer, citing administrative sanctions, deprives employees of their entire bonus, is a disproportionate punishment and, at the same time, for example, arriving late for work is not It means that the employee did not meet all other indicators related to his efficiency. The proposed amendments define the threshold for reducing bonuses by 20%. The Russian history of labor legislation is rich in precedents of employers’ tricks not to pay wages, citing the fact that employees are That is why, for example, to protect the labor rights of workers, in 1886 norms were approved special measures that limited the amount of the fine to 30% of the total salary,” added Safonov.
