Recently one faced the case of forced leave without the retention of salary at the initiative of the administration. To what extent is it lawful in compliance with the norms of the labor law?

Based on the statistical data of the Statistics Committee of the Russian Federation, more than 4 million Russian nationals have to work part-time or be on forced leave from state-owned companies and separate commercial organizations.

From the point of view of labor legislation, first of all, one should speak about violation of the legislation pertaining to vacations by the employer as "forced" leaves are not provided for by the labor legislation. Let's remind ourselves that pursuant to Article 76 of the Labor Code of the RF, the employee may be granted short-time compassionate leave by the employee's application or by other admissible excuses without the maintenance of their salary. Duration of a temporary leave shall be agreed between the employee and administration. In such cases, one should speak about granting short-term leave without the maintenance of salary at the employee's initiative.

As a result of a protracted economic crisis under the conditions of decline in output, the crisis of the payment system and growing level of unemployment, 'forced' leave without the maintenance of salary has been generated. The situation arises when the employers have to impose unpaid vacations on the employees associated with their financial and economic standing for avoiding mass release and thereby keeping its personnel. In such cases, the employee faces the problem whether to be laid off or to take a forced leave. However, regardless of negative changes in the Russian economy, the law always provides the option for the employee to protect his rights to labor. The right to labor is granted to each citizen and their corresponding remuneration thereof.

For settling this matter in question, the Ministry of Labor of the RF enacted the Commentary "On Procedure for Granting Leaves at the Employer's Initiative without the Maintenance of Salaries" on June 27, 1996. This Commentary provides for compensation payments to the employee, should a forced leave be imposed upon him at the initiative of administration. And namely, should the employee fail to meet his duties not at his fault, provided for under the employment agreement (contract) signed with the same, then pursuant to Article 94 of the Labor Code of the RF the employer shall pay for downtime at the rate of at least 2/3 of the employee's base pay. A refusal of administration to pay for downtime may be appealed against in court. The employee may waive such forced leave. In such cases, he may be laid off under the ground of staff reduction provided that administration gave a timely notice of release two months prior and payment of dismissal wage hereof at the rate of an average salary, which may be kept for a period of three months while the employee is looking for a new employment.