ZAÅ TITA PRAVA U BOSNI I HERCEGOVINI - Solidar

Labour rights study in Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Law on employment of foreigners (BD Offi cial gazette, number 15/09 and 19/09)
a. Objections
Labour rights study in Bosnia and
Herzegovina
According to the general provisions on labor in both entities, the collective
agreement, labor by-laws, or labor contract, no lesser rights than those defi ned by the
general provisions can be established, except if it is not explicitly stipulated by the same
provisions or some other legislative provision. Upon the entity labor law amendments in
the fall of 2000, and upon the passing of the new Labor law of Republika Srpska, more
liberal provisions were introduced in order to establish a more fl exible labor market.
Current BaH legislation on protection of employment as well as provisions on temporary
work contracts are in some cases more liberal than provisions in many EU countries.
As stated in the Initial report on implementation of the International pact on economic,
social and cultural rights from January 2004, BaH employers are now faced with fewer
procedural diffi culties and they have similar, if not smaller, fi ring costs in the sense of
notice period length as well as severance pay. All this has been done in order to create
a more favorable environment for the private sector development which was at the
expense of workers’ rights. On the other hand, high taxes and contributions increasing
the labor costs and pushing many entrepreneurs into grey economy remained intact.
Current Labor law of the BaH Federation brought in 1999, has, since then, suffered
signifi cant changes and amendments. The 2000 Labor law amendments erased
provisions related to signing of written labor contracts and delivering them to the
employee, all of which by that time used to exist in the general labor provisions. These
legal amendments stipulated that unless the employer gave the employee a labor
contracts in a written form, the employer is due to send a written statement (Article 21a)
within a 30-day deadline to the permanent employee and on the day of the beginning
of work to the temporary employee. The obligation of signing a contract in a written
form still exists only with signing of contracts on temporary and occasional jobs (Article
137. paragraph 1.of the FBaH Labor law). It is important to emphasize that these legal
amendments have not been harmonized with the provision on civil registry, which
precisely states that, within an 8-day deadline, the employer is due to fi le an insurance
registration for every employee, or a person for whom pensioners’ and health insurance
is obligatory, for which it is necessary to enclose a labor contract. Also, the labor contract
must be enclosed during health insurance registration.
By the same token, these Amendments of the FBaH Labor Law also erased,
unfortunately, provisions on employees’ rights on social insurance, healthcare and the
like, probably for these issues were regulated by special provisions from this area.
Given the pervasiveness of contributions evasion for social insurance or violations of
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