On February 12, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko signed Decree No. 45 "On ensuring the payment of wages and remuneration". This was reported to BELTA by the press service of the Head of State.
In accordance with the document, the Department of State Labour Inspection is granted the right to issue mandatory requirements for the elimination of violations of legislation when detecting facts of non-payment (incomplete payment) within the established timeframe, not only of wages but also of remuneration under civil law contracts.
If business entities fail to comply with these requirements, such payments shall be recovered out of court. The Department of State Labour Inspection shall submit a representation to the enforcement authorities to initiate enforcement proceedings in the interests of a citizen.
Furthermore, to enhance the social protection of employees, the decree increases the amount of extraordinary payments withheld from employers to cover wage arrears – from 1.5 to 3 living wage budgets.
As BELTA reported, the relevant draft decree was recently discussed at a meeting between the President and the leadership of the Council of Ministers. It was then proposed to extend to remuneration under civil law contracts the same system of out-of-court debt recovery that currently exists for non-payment of wages to employees. Following the meeting, this approach was supported by the Head of State.
Minister of Labour and Social Protection Andrei Lobovich explained to journalists that such a form of employer-employee relationship as contract work is gaining popularity. Last year, about 650,000 people worked under civil law contracts. Of these, more than 220,000 worked solely under such contracts.
However, this has also led to an increase in citizens' appeals to the Department of State Labour Inspection regarding the non-payment of remuneration. "Consequently, there is a growing need to regulate issues of non-payment of remuneration under civil law contracts, by analogy with non-payment of wages," the minister noted.