Joining the 2017-2020 Federal Sector-based Agreement for Construction and Industry of Construction Materials

At the federal level, the industry agreement has been adopted which sets additional obligations and automatically extends to companies in the construction sector and in the construction materials industry. To refuse to join the agreement, a well-grounded written refusal should be submitted to the Russian Ministry of Labour by 11 August 2017.

On 13 July 2017, official government newspaper of record Rossiyskaya Gazeta published a Letter of the Russian Ministry of Labour and Social Protection (the 'Ministry of Labour') in relation to joining the 2017-2020 Federal Sector-based Agreement for Construction and Construction Materials Industry (the 'Agreement').

The Agreement applies to:

• companies that are members of the All-Russian Inter-industry Association of Employers ‘Russian Union of Builders’ (the ‘Union’);
• companies that are not members of the Union but have authorised the Union to enter into the Agreement on their behalf;
• other companies in the construction sector and in the construction materials industry, unless such companies submit to the Ministry of Labour a well-grounded refusal to join the Agreement by 11 August 2017.
• Below we set out some of the provisions of the Agreement which lay down additional requirements for employers.
• additional payments on top of the tariff rates (official salaries) are provided for multi-shift work in the amount of 20% of the tariff rate (official salary) for each working hour of an evening shift and 40 % of the tariff rate (official salary) for each working hour of a night shift (clause 3.25);
• salaries should be indexed annually in accordance with the growth of the consumer prices for goods and services (according to the Russian Federal State Statistics Service) (clause 3.9); 
• trade unions should be notified of any intention of an employer to engage foreign labour (clause 4.5);
• if it is decided to liquidate the company / to reduce the headcount or to lay off the staff, any dismissed employee should be provided with information on vacancies in other branches, representative offices and other standalone units of the employer, including in other locations (clause 4.11.2);
• if an employee dies in an industrial accident or of an occupational decease, compensation of RUB 1 million should be provided to the family of the person who died in addition to the amounts specified by law (clause 7.2); 
• if a disability category is assigned to an employee during the working period as a result of an industrial injury or an occupational decease, in addition to the financial assistance established by the law, a one-time monetary compensation should be provided to such employee in the following amounts (clause 7.3):