A draft Federal Law amending the Labor Code of the Russian Federation (hereinafter – the “LC RF”) to unify the procedure for transferring employees to another job has been submitted to the State Duma for consideration.

The current version of Article 81 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation does not specify the sequence in which an employer is obliged to offer vacant positions to an employee during a transfer.

The draft law provides for a new wording of part three of Article 81 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, which sets out a strict procedure according to which the employer is obliged to offer the employee first of all positions corresponding to the employee’s qualifications, and in the absence of such positions or if the employee refuses, to offer lower-level or lower-paid positions.

In addition, it is proposed to introduce in the Labor Code of the Russian Federation the concept of “other locality”, which is understood as a locality outside the administrative-territorial boundaries of the relevant settlement. Such definition corresponds to the position of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, as set forth in the Plenum Resolution No. 2 of 17.03.2004.

As noted in the explanatory note to the draft law, the amendments will help to preserve the professional status of employees (priority offer of vacancies corresponding to qualifications will exclude cases of unjustified demotion), prevent abuse by employers, provide employees with more opportunities to keep their jobs, increase transparency in relations between employers and employees (employees will understand what transfer options should be offered to them, and employers will be responsible for the transfer of their employees to the place of employment). This will reduce the risk of unlawful termination of employment contracts, simplify law enforcement practice, which will lead to a reduction in labor disputes and reduce the burden on the courts.

In the current wording of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, numerous articles (73, 74, 76, 81, 83, 84, 261, 3496) duplicate the description of the transfer procedure with minor differences, which complicates the application of these norms.

The draft law proposes to eliminate this redundancy and instead of repetitive wording to introduce a single reference to the third part of Article 81 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, set out in a new wording.

According to the authors of the draft law, this approach will ensure logical consistency of the Code and compliance with the principles of codification, reduce the number of errors in the application of norms by employers and courts (the possibility to be guided by one norm instead of similar ones), simplify the procedure for introducing amendments in the future (amendments will need to be made only to one article, not to several related ones).

If adopted, the amendments to the Labor Code of the Russian Federation will enter into force from the date of their official publication.

Link: https://sozd.duma.gov.ru/bill/894719-8

Draft law № 894719-8