GOVERNMENT EMERGENCY ORDINANCE NO. 53/2017 AMENDING LAW NO. 53/2003 – THE LABOR CODE - HAS BEEN PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF ROMANIA (NO. 644; 7 AUGUST 2017)

The main changes:
  1. The concept of “undeclared work” is defined as:
    1. Allowing a person to work in spite of this person not having concluded his/her written employment contract on the day preceding the start day of the activity;
    2. Allowing a person to work without sending his/her employment report to the General Employees’ Register, at the latest the day before the commencement of the activity;
    3. Allowing an employee to work when his/her individual employment contract has been suspended;
    4. Allowing an employee to work outside the schedule agreed in a part-time individual employment contract.
  2. The provision stating that a written copy of an individual employment contract was compulsory as a condition of validity has been removed.
  3. The Ordinance states that the employer is required to keep, copies of individual employment contracts at the workplace, for employees who carry out activities in that location.
  4. Amendments to employment contracts must now be notified to the authorities and recorded in Revisal prior to their taking effect. (Under the previous rules, notification was only required afterwards, within 20 working days of the amendment taking effect).
  5. The employer is now required to keep a record of the starting and finishing times of the working program.
  6. New offences have been defined and fines set for breaches of the labor code.
    For example:

    1. Allowing an employee to work during a period when he/she had his/her individual employment contract suspended – a RON 20,000 fine applicable for every identified person;
    2. Allowing an employee to work outside his/her agreed schedule as set out in a part-time individual work contract – a RON 10,000 fine applicable for every identified person;
    3. Breaching the requirement to keep a copy of the individual work contracts of employees working in a particular location– a RON 10,000 fine).
    The level of the fines has also been increased. At the same time, the range of penalties which may be imposed by labor inspectors has also been extended (e.g. they may now shut down activity at a workplace in certain situations).
  7. The previous rule, under which it was a criminal offense to employ more than 5 people without a work contract, has been eliminated.

Date: 7 August 2017
Issued by : the Gouvernement