Which new provisions of the recently amended Civil Code affect the labor-law relations? Let’s have a look briefly at three selected areas:
1. Dependent work of underage people
Previously, when an underage person intended to enter an Employment Contract (or an Agreement for Work), two conditions needed to have been fulfilled under the Labour Law. First, the underage applicant was required to be at least 15 years of age. The second mandatory condition required that the person completed his/her compulsory school attendance. These two conditions needed to be complied cumulatively. Due to these requirements, no underage person could have entered any Employment Contract/Agreement for Work before he/she finished the compulsory school attendance, even if he/she already was 15 years old.
Since the 28th of February an amendment to the Civil Code came into an effect that brought a novelty in eligibility of employing for employing underage people. New § 35 art. 1 of the Civil Code states: “An underage person who has reached the age of 15 may undertake to perform a dependent work under the circumstances of an else legal regulation (note: i.e. the Labour Code). The underage person is prohibited to arrange a day of the commencement of the work prior to the day of finishing his/her compulsory school attendance.”
This now means that the underage person is only required to fulfil the minimum of age-of-15 condition to be able to accept an employment contract/agreement for work. However, the underage can only start work as soon as his/her compulsory-school-attendance condition is also fulfilled. In practice, this means the undertake person may sign the contract before he/she finishes his/her school attendance, yet the commencement of the work date must start only after the school compulsory attendance requirement is complete.
2. Termination of an employment contract/an agreement for a work by legal representatives
Up to now, the Civil Code used to allow that under the conditions of legal regulation a legal representative of an underage person, who has not reached the age of 16, could have terminated the employment contract/agreement for a work instead of the underage employee.
The amendment to the Civil Code has completely cancelled such rule with the effect since the 28th of February.
3. Changes in Agreement of the salary/other income deduction
The former paragraph § 2045 art. 1 of the Civil Code defined the principle saying the debt may have been ensured by the creditor and the debtor’s agreement on a wage or a salary deduction with the extent no higher than the half of the employee’s income concerned.
The new version of the paragraph mentioned above changes the rule with the regard to the extent of the deduction. With the effect of the Civil Code amendment there is no legal limitation of the deduction extent since the 28th of February.
Contact:
Markéta Haničáková
HR Project Manager, Accace Czech Republic
