12.06.2024

COMPENSATION OF SIX WAGES WHEN LEAVING A SECOND JOB

Four years ago, a change was made to the Labor Code regarding the retirement benefit of workers or employees.

According to this change, upon termination of the employment relationship, after the worker or employee has acquired the right to a pension for length of service and age, regardless of the reason for the termination, he is entitled to compensation from the employer in the amount of his gross remuneration for a period of 2 months , and if he has acquired 10 years of work experience at the same employer or in the same group of enterprises in the last 20 years - to compensation in the amount of his gross remuneration for a period of 6 months. This benefit can only be paid once.

Workers often turn to specialists with the question of whether they can receive such compensation if they fulfill the condition of having worked for 10 years out of the last 20 years for the same employer, but in the event that they leave work for a number of reasons without having acquired or exercised the right on pension.

If the employee performs work under an additional employment contract, parallel to the main one, with another employer (so-called external compatibility), it should not affect the missing work experience, because the law explicitly says that this should only be for work with the same employer or in the same group of enterprises.

If in the last 20 years, not less than 10 years of work experience have been acquired by the worker or employee at the employer who terminates the employment relationship, the circumstance of how many employment contracts with this employer the work experience was acquired is not important, as in the periods of "interruption" the worker or employee may have worked for other employers. The requirement is that the 10 years must be with the terminating employer.

If less than 10 years of work experience have been acquired in the last 20 years at the employer terminating the employment relationship, he must assess whether the required 10 years of work experience is not supplemented by work experience acquired by working for another employer, with who fall into the same group of enterprises.

We remind you that according to the law "group of enterprises" is a concept within the meaning of the Law on labor migration and labor mobility, which defines that "group of enterprises" is two or more related enterprises, such as: one enterprise in relation to the other enterprise directly or indirectly owns a preferential share of the subscribed capital of the second enterprise; controls the majority of votes related to the share capital issued by the second entity; has the right to appoint more than half of the members of the administrative, management or supervisory body of the second undertaking, or the undertakings are under the sole management of the parent undertaking.'

Also, workers and employees could not negotiate a clause with the employer that upon leaving they will receive the compensation of 6 salaries, because the right to this compensation arises only when the requirements are fully met (the conditions of Art. 222, Para. 3 of the Labor Code), i.e. at the time of termination of the employment relationship, the worker or employee must have acquired the right to a pension for length of service and age, regardless of the reason for the termination.

These requirements of the law are mandatory and no deviation from them is allowed, including any stipulations in additional agreements. Therefore, there is no possibility of negotiating such a condition in an employment contract or additional agreement.