Darbuotojų informavimas apie jų darbo sąlygas Europos Bendrijos ir Lietuvos darbo teisėje

Abstract

The article analyzes the problems of implementing in Lithuania the directive No. 91/533/EEC on employer’s obligation to inform employees of the conditions applicable to the contract or employment relationship. The directive tries essentially to formalize the interrelations of employees and employers and to increase the possibilities of the employees to learn about their rights and duties. The certain mechanism of employees’ information exists in the Lithuania’s labour law. An employee learns about main work conditions signing the individual labour contract according to the confirmed sample form, also when employer informs on the conditions of future work. Nevertheless the national law norms do not fully correspond to the requirements of the directive yet. Although the compulsory conclusion of the labour contract according to the sample form will correspond the way to present the information according to the directive requirements but the content of the presented information factually becomes depended upon how detailed it should be required to formalize the labour conditions in the compulsory labour contract form confirmed by the government. If to foresee the necessity to set forth all work conditions provided by article 2 of the directive in the individual labour contract form, there will be a danger to disorder the present mechanism of work conditions establishment and change - all work conditions confirmed by the written agreement of the parties will become the individual agreement term and it would not be allowed to change them by the unilateral decision of an employer. This problem can be solved partly by clearly separating obligatory agreement conditions from the informative conditions in the agreement form. However, the author draws the conclusion that another way of the implementation of the mentioned directive would be more corresponding to the directive goals and the national law traditions. Namely, he proposes to extend the duty of the employer according Article 99 Section 3 of the Lithuanian Labour Code to inform employee about the future work conditions corresponding to those enumerated in Article 2 of the directive. It is argued, that national legislation shall foresee that the employee should be informed about all labour conditions and their changes by the separate document in written form. Additionally the separate regulation should consolidate duties of the employer to inform employees in case of posting of workers abroad, as Article 4 of directive No. 91/533 requires it.