Advantages and Disadvantages of the New Edition of Chapter 49.1 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation

The paper analyzes the novels of Ch. 49.1 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation introduced on January 1, 2021. It highlights advantages and disadvantages of new approaches of the legislator to the regulation of remote work, describes preliminary results regarding the application of new rules. The merits of the new edition of Ch. 49.1 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation include the emergence of the opportunity to combine work “in the office” with a remote work in accordance with the employment contract, the cancellation of Article 312.5 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation that contains the right to establish additional grounds for terminating an employment contract with a remote worker, and the simplification of the procedure for signing an employment contract and other documents required for registration of employment of a remote worker. As shortcomings, the author enumerates the absence in the new edition of Ch. 49.1 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation of norms concerning the peculiarities of implementation by teleworkers of the right to join trade unions to protect their rights, the peculiarities of investigating an industrial accident or occupational disease of a teleworker, the absence of norms on the “right to be offline” beyond working hours for a teleworker, imperfection of the legal technique associated with the introduction into the legal field of two new grounds for terminating an employment contract with a remote worker. The author predicts possible violations of the newly introduced provision on the wages preservation in full when the employee performs his labor function remotely, which is linked to the incentive payments in the wage structure, awarding which is considered as a right, rather than an obligation of the employer. Among the disadvantages the paper names the lack of conflict-of-laws rules in the case of remote work carried out by both foreign workers and citizens of the Russian Federation outside its borders. In general, the author gives positive assessment of amendments introduced in Ch. 49.1 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, as expanding the possibilities of the parties to the employment contract for a more active application of the rules on distance work. The shortcomings noted in the paper should be regarded as material for theoretical comprehension and discussion with the aim of further improvement of the legal regulation of remote workers’ labor.

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