Labour Law is about to be amended to impose an obligation on the businesses to have copies of employment contracts available at the branches. Obligation is limited to those employees who are related to the particular branch.

Branch (struktūrvienība) is a location of the commercial activity that is registered with the State Revenue Service.

The amendments yet require support by the Parliament (Saeima) in the repeated 2nd (final) reading. Anticipated that the changes to the Labour Law will apply as of 1 June 2009.

In accordance with the background information, the purpose of the amendments is to make life easier for the State Labour Inspection (Valsts darba inspekcija) that often demands copies of the employment agreements with particular employees.

We are of the opinion that copies of the employment agreements can be stored in electronic format or made available through internet, because the purpose of the amendments was to make the copies available to the State Labour Inspection immediately upon their demand. However, this approach should be verified in a formal manner with the State Labour Inspection.

Sad part of the story is related to the large businesses that actively operate in the regions and are not involved in illegal employment because they are the ones who will face additional costs.

It is likely that the officials from the State Labour Inspection will visit the  branches of the large businesses to collect fines due to unavailability of the employment agreement copies, and the primary purpose will not be to deal with illegal employment.

Practices involved

Employment