The Labour Code has been updated to bring Slovak law into line with EU law on maternity and parental leave and European works councils. This includes:

Maternity/parental leave

  • requiring employers to allow employees to return to their old job and place of work after a period of maternity or parental leave and, where this is impossible, to assign them to another equivalent role
  • requiring employers to ensure that their working conditions on return are no less favourable than those they enjoyed when they started maternity or parental leave and include all improvements that they would have received had they not taken maternity or parental leave
  • extending the same rights to employees returning from service in a public office, work with labour union, training, extraordinary service, temporary sick leave or quarantine

European Works Councils (EWCs)

  • giving EWCs the right to agree a wider scope of information and consultation with employee representatives and to include employees and their representatives from other countries in the information and consultation process
  • requiring the central management teams of employers who are part of a group operating in member states, to provide the necessary information to allow the relevant parties to decide whether to establish a EWC or use a different mechanism for information and consultation with employees
  • requiring the special negotiating body to comprise one member appointed or elected by employees in each member state in which the group has employees for each 10% (or fraction of 10%) of the total number of employees in the group
  • giving the EWC the right in extraordinary circumstances to seek information from the employer and to meet with its central management or other relevant management team. Extraordinary circumstances mean collective redundancies or the (total or partial) closure, transfer or cessation of the employer's business
  • requiring the composition of EWCs to be adjusted to reflect any major changes in the group, such as those resulting from merger or de-merger (by the process used to set up the EWC unless the parties agree otherwise)
  • even where the EWC agreement does not allow for adjustment (or there are discrepancies in the adjustment provisions contained in two or more relevant EWC agreements), enabling the adjustment process to be begun on central management's own initiative or by written demand from at least 100 employees (or their representatives) in each of at least two different member states.

Law: Act 48/2011 Coll. amending the Labour Code (Act 311/2001 Coll.)

This article was written for Law-Now, CMS Cameron McKenna's free online information service. To register for Law-Now, please go to www.law-now.com/law-now/mondaq

Law-Now information is for general purposes and guidance only. The information and opinions expressed in all Law-Now articles are not necessarily comprehensive and do not purport to give professional or legal advice. All Law-Now information relates to circumstances prevailing at the date of its original publication and may not have been updated to reflect subsequent developments.

The original publication date for this article was 29/03/2011.