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Paterns of flexibility in newly proposed labour law regulation
Functional flexibility in DNLC is enabled by distinguishment of “soft” (changeable by
agreement) and “hard” (nondiscrimination, safety at work, maximum work and minimum of
rest time etc.) conditions of employment contract as long as there is balance between the
employer and employee interests (DNLC art. 32th part 3). Both contractual parties may
initiate agreement on change by of contractual terms (DNLC art. 44th and 45th), but
employer disposes right to dismiss employee because of refusal to work under changed
contractual conditions (including working time regime, working place) if they are changed
out of economic or organizational necessity (DNLC art. 56th part 1).
Flexible regulation of concussion and termination of employment contracts on initiative of
the employer is an essential part of flexicurity policy. New regulation provides possibility
dynamically respond to the need for labor force simplifying procedures of employment
contract conclusion. Employee will be able to inform State Social Insurance Fund Board
territorial office and employee to begin performing his duties within one hour after
conclusion of the contract, while existing legal regulation allows employee to start work
only next day after conclusion of contract. List of the reasons, which allows employer to
terminate employment contracts on his initiative (DNLC art. 56th.) include: 1) redundancy of
work function of the employee due to objective changes in the work organization and
employer does not have job vacancy; 2) employee’s inability to reach results, set out in
performance improvement plan; 3) employee’s refusal to work under out of economic or
organizational necessity changed contractual conditions. Term of advance notice of the
termination of contract on the initiative of an employer without employee fault is reduced
to one month and severance pay to one average monthly wage. If work relationship lasted
less than one years, terms of advance warning and severance payment is cut by half. DNLC
(Article 58-th) mentions the employer's right to terminate the employment contract by the
employer's will without mentioning reason (real reason may not be discrimination). In this
case employer must warn employee in advance of three working days and paying severance
payment in minimum amount of six average monthly salaries.
DNLC considerably expands contractual flexibility by extended list of types of employment
contracts. Unlike present regulation (CLC article 108 part 2) DNLC does not mention
permanent contract (non-term) as the main type of employment form. Newly proposed
labour regulation allows conclusion of fix-term contracts even if the work is of permanent
nature, but maximum duration of contract, or several consecutive contracts with the same
worker is no longer than two years or five years if successive fixed-term employment
contracts are concluded for different work functions (DNLC art. 67th) Under fixed-term,
project-based employment contract (DNLC art. 91th) employee undertakes obligation in
agreed time (no more than three years) to reach clearly defined result. This particular type
of fixed-term contracts because of allocated responsibility and operational autonomy
reflects not contractual, but functional flexibility.
Temporary agency work along with the freelancer’s services, service outsourcing are seen as
most flexible forms of organization. Temporary agency work (also known as “agency work”
or “personnel lease”), common in “old” European Union countries is still relatively rare in
Lithuania (Usonis, Bagdanskis, 2008) .On 19 May 2011, the Lithuanian Parliament adopted
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