New amendments to Labour Code in order to relieve labour courts. Responsibilities for personnel and compensation.

A new law, no. 213/2020 amended and supplemented Law no. 54/2003 – the Labour Code in order to relieve labour courts from the high number of files pending on their dockets as well as to bring  some clarifications as regards to the persons responsible for registration required by law and for keeping in good order the personnel files.

Each employer has the right to organize its human resources and payroll activity in the following ways:

a) by the employer taking on specific responsabilities;

b) by designating one or several employees to whom to allocate, through their job descriptions, responsibilities regarding human resources and compensations;

c) by contracting responsibilities to external services specialized in human resources and payroll.

If the employer outsources the service/ department of human resources and compensation, such must be coordinated by labor law expert.

As per the substantiation note, i.e. the note explaining the purpose of the legislation, the outsourced services will be able to provide human resources activities only if they have as an authorized object of activity "Labor supply and management services" and such activities will be coordinated by a labor legislation expert.

The grounds for approving such an enactment were, as per the substantiation note, the fact that untill now, individuals, without relevant education/experience in human resources, could provide human resources related services and fill in the General Registry for the Employees’ Evidence (in Romanian: „Revisal”) any information/employment contract. Apparently in 2018 there were detected almost 14,600 individuals without legal employment forms and almost 29 mil. Euros fines were applied.

With the new rules on the organisation of payroll and compensation activities, the liability for keeping the personnel file and making the relevant registrations of the employment contract is clearly determined.

Another new provision brought by this law is that during the negotiation, for the conclusion or amendment of the individual employment contract either party may be assisted by an external consultant specializing in labor law or by a representative of the trade union of which he is a member.

In order to try to relieve the courts, the possibility of settling a conflict between the parties through conciliation was introduced as being possible before the parties reaching to a court of law, i.e. amicable settlement of individual labor disputes, with the help of an external consultant specializing in labor law, in conditions of neutrality, impartiality, confidentiality and having the free consent of the parties, if this possibility has been agreed in the employment contract.

The external conciliator or consultant specialized in labor law can be a lawyer, an expert in labor law or, as the case may be, a mediator specialized in labor law.

Also, in order to ensure a correct disciplinary investigation, it is necessary for the authorized person to do the investigation, to have solid competences from the labor legislation. Thus, disciplinary investigation can be done now

(a) by an individual appointed by the employer

(b) by a commission appointed by the employees

(c) by an external consultant specialised in labour legislation.

The employee may be assisted during the investigation by an external consultant specialised in labour legislation, in addition to the possiblity of being assisted by a trade union representative.

Law no. 213/2020 was published in Official Gazette of Romania, part I, no. 893 as of 30 September 2020.