A new law has been passed on the special evaluation of working conditions and amendments to the Russian Labour Code

Pepeliaev Group advises that the following laws have been adopted: No. 426-FZ “On special evaluation of work conditions” dated 28 December 2013 (the “Law on Special Evaluation”) and the law amending certain other federal laws including the Labour Code and the Code of Administrative Offences in connection with special evaluation of work conditions being introduced (No. 421-FZ “Law on Amendments” dated 28 December 2013).

Below we have summarised the most important provisions of these laws.

1.    The assessment of workplaces with respect to work conditions is replaced with the special evaluation of work conditions (the “special evaluation”), most parameters of which will be identical to the procedure for assessing workplaces. The major differences are as follows:

• It is made possible to declare that labour conditions are safe: if the expert of the assessing agency concludes there are no hazardous or dangerous work factors at the workplace, no measurements or research is required and the work safety of the workplace shall be evidenced by the employer’s declaration. For certain workplaces declaring work safety is prohibited (for example, if the previous assessment of workplaces with respect to work conditions classified the conditions of the workplace as hazardous).

• Hazardous and dangerous factors to be researched during the special evaluation are set out in the Law on Special Evaluation (at present these factors are specified in the subordinate legislation). The requirement has been abolished that intellectual and emotional load should be evaluated as indicators of stressfulness of the work process which often caused certain employees’ work conditions to be unjustifiably classified as hazardous.

• The requirement to conduct special evaluation regarding home workers has been abolished and absence of obligation to conduct special evaluation regarding distance workers has been additionally confirmed.

• It has been set out that the employer should conduct an extraordinary special evaluation further to a petition of a representative body of the employees only provided that such petition is motivated. The right of individual employees to demand an extraordinary special evaluation has been cancelled.

• An employee has been granted the right to attend a special evaluation being conducted at his/her workplace.

• The time limit has been established for when employees should be informed of special evaluation results – not later than 30 days from when the special evaluation report is approved.

• A requirement has been added for the employer to publish at its official website the summary data of the special evaluation results with regard to classes of work conditions being established and actions towards improving work conditions being scheduled. The time limit is also not later than 30 days from when the special evaluation report is approved.

The results of any assessment of workplaces conducted before 1 January 2014 remain effective for five years after it is complete, until 31 December 2018 at the latest.

2.    The amount of compensation for work in hazardous conditions will depend on the class and subclass of the work conditions (currently all employees whose work conditions were classified as hazardous by an assessment of workplaces should be provided with all three types of compensation irrespective of the class or subclass of their hazardous or dangerous work conditions). According to the amendments to the Russian Labour Code, the compensation should be provided as follows:

Additionally, a provision has been made that on the basis of an industry (inter-industry) agreement and a collective agreement, as well as the employee’s written consent, the 36-hour work week may be extended to 40 hours with additional monetary compensation being paid to the employee. On similar conditions additional leave exceeding 7 days may be replaced with additional monetary compensation.

It is also worth mentioning that article 15 in part 3 of the Law on Amendments includes a provision which in practice may be treated as preventing compensation from being abolished for work in hazardous conditions if currently employees actually receive such compensation.

3.    The results of the special evaluation will also be used to identify the additional insurance rate for contributions to be paid to the Russian Pension Fund to finance the insured part of the labour pension:

4.    Employees whose work conditions are classified as hazardous or dangerous by an assessment of workplaces or special evaluation are excluded from the average number of employees for the purposes of calculating the quota for hiring disabled persons (amended article 21 of the Federal Law “On social protection of disabled persons”).

5.    The reporting period for the purposes of booking the aggregate work time of employees whose work conditions are hazardous or dangerous is limited to three months (article 104 of the Russian Labour Code as amended).

6.    It has been made possible for relationships which arose on the basis of a civil law agreement to be classified as labour relationships by an order of a state labour inspector, provided that such order is not challenged in court (article 19(1) of the Russian Labour Code as amended).

7.    The part of the Russian Code of Administrative Offences regarding violations of labour legislation has been amended. In particular, an administrative suspension of a company’s activities may now be imposed only in case of a repeat violation of labour safety requirements. Fines have been increased for non-compliance with labour safety rules, drafting a labour agreement improperly or avoiding entering into it, non-compliance with state labour inspectors’ orders and other violations of labour legislation.

All these laws except for certain provisions come into effect from 1 January 2014. The amendments to the Russian Code of Administrative Offences come into effect from 1 January 2015.

It is expected that the adoption of the Law on Special Evaluation and Law on Amendments will result in certain currently effective regulatory legal acts being repealed regarding the assessment of workplaces (including Resolution of the Russian Government No. 870 dated 20 November 2008). In addition, more than 10 new regulations by the Ministry of Labour and Russian Government are expected to be adopted.

From 2014 work conditions at workplaces will be evaluated according to the new procedure, which will require the approaches which are currently used for assessment of workplaces to be reconsidered. Within the limits which are set out in the laws described above companies may reconsider the compensation which they plan to provide to the employees who work in hazardous conditions.

In view of the amended procedure for defining the quota for hiring disabled persons companies may reconsider the number of workplaces they create or allocate for this quota.

The new limit for the reporting period concerning employees who work in hazardous conditions may cause companies to amend their internal regulations and labour agreements.

Instead of the existing two additional insurance rates for contributions to be paid to the Russian Pension Fund to finance the insured part of the labour pension (these rates are 6% and 4% depending on the type of work as of 2014 (parts 1 and 2 of the Federal Law No. 212-FZ dated 24 July 2009)), the Law on Amendments introduces six additional rates (from 0% to 8%) depending on the class of the work conditions.

Pepeliaev Group’s lawyers have extensive experience of advising on the assessment of workplaces, compensation for work in hazardous conditions and quotas for disabled persons; we are available to provide legal assistance in any projects connected with implementing the new legal requirements (including drafting step-by-step plans for providing/changing compensation for work in hazardous conditions, drafting amendments to companies’ internal regulations and labour agreements, as well as preparing reports on compliance with the requirements for workplace quotas.)

In Moscow - Julia Borozdna, Head of Practice "Employment and Migration Law", on (495) 967-00-07 (phone) or by j.borozdna@pgplaw.ru;

In Saint-Petersburg - Alexander Korkin, Senior Associate, on (812) 640-60-10 or by a.korkin@pgplaw.ru, Sergey Sosnovsky, Head of Practice "Tax law and tax disputes" on (812) 640-60-10 or by s.sosnovsky@pgplaw.ru;

In Krasnoyarsk - Egor Lysenko, Head of Siberian office in Krasnoyarsk, on (391) 277-73-00 or by e.lysenko@pgplaw.ru.