The Czech Labour Code was amended this year again; the amendment came into effect on 1. 10. 2015. We bring you an overview of the most important changes resulting from this amendment.
Compensation for work injuries and occupational diseases
Thanks to the amendment to the Labour Code the regulation of compensation for work injuries and occupational diseases came back to the part eleven of the Labour Code (temporarily contained in the transitional provisions of the Labour Code) and the so far ineffective Act no. 266/2006 Coll., Casualty employee Insurance Act, has been cancelled.
For determination of the amount of pain compensation and impairment of social life it is no longer possible to apply the ordinance which provided for method for calculation of such compensation, which was disadvantageous to the employees. In October 2015 it was replaced by a governmental regulations more favourable to the employees and a new level of compensation is several times higher.
Compensation of survivors
Newly also a registered partner is entitled to a lump-sum compensation (besides the surviving spouse, dependent child and parents if they lived with the deceased in the same household).
Damage to property
Still, the employee must report to the employer any damage to his belongings within 15 days from the day he learned about the damage. Newly it will not constitute an unjust enrichment if the employer indemnifies the employee despite the failure of that period and the employer will be no longer entitled to a refund of such compensation.
Termination of employment agreement
The revised Labour Code provides for an explicit regulation of termination of the agreement on fulfilment of work (so far only the termination of the agreement on performance of work activity was provided for). AFW, as well as APWA may be terminated by an agreement between the employer and employee, by a notice with 15 days notice period or by an immediate termination.
Other changes
The novelty is that if an unjust remuneration of the employee is agreed between the employer and the employee, such agreement on remuneration will be null and void. There will be no need to invoke the nullity in front of a court.
Thanks to this amendment it has been unified the terminology used by the new Civil Code and Labour Code. E.g. “Preventive visit” was replaced by “labor-medical examination”, “compensation” by “non-pecuniary and pecuniary damage,” “preventing damage” by “prevention” and many others.
