Dear clients,

On 17 June 2020, the President signed the so-called major amendment to the Labor Code.

You will be able to get acquainted with the most important points of this amendment on 21 July 2020 at our already traditional labor law breakfast (together with the topic of control by state authorities) or at an online webinar with the same content.

This is a significant change to the current wording of this act, which will bring, for example:

• a completely new holiday arrangement

i) the employee will be newly entitled to leave in amount of the set weekly working time multiplied by the area of leave to which the employee was entitled – the scope of leave will therefore be determined not by days but by hours;

ii) the calculation of the proportion of leave for employees who did not work for the employer for the whole calendar year is also simplified - under the condition of 4 weeks of work in a calendar year, the employee will be entitled to 1/52 of the total annual leave for each specified weekly working time the employee actually worked;

iii) the rules for counting obstacles at work to entitlement to leave and reduction of leave; and

iv) the transfer of bonus leave to the next year is allowed.

• shared job - the employer will be able to use the special scheme for two or more employees with shorter working hours and with the same type of work;

• delivery - the storage time if the consignment is not picked up will now be 15 days (we will therefore see the option to deliver validly, e.g. by sending with common delivery notice);

• transfer of rights and obligations - the rules for transferring rights and obligations to a new employer in connection with the transfer of activities directly by law are specified;

• day off related to events for children and youth - for events organized by a legal entity registered in the public register for at least 5 years, whose main activity is working with children and youth, the employee will be entitled to wage compensation, which can be (to a limited extent) paid to the employer from the state budget.

Some of the changes contained in the amendment will take effect on 30 July 2020 and some on 1 January 2021.

Other news - CORONAVIRUS UPDATE

Antivirus C

On 16 June 2020, the Chamber of Deputies outvoted the Senate and adopted a bill introducing Antivirus C.

As we have already informed you it will be possible to use the waiver of social security premiums and contributions to the state employment policy, which employers are obliged to pay, for the months of June, July and August 2020, within the framework of Antivirus C.

The Bill conditions the use of this regime (separately for each month) upon:

- the number of employees (participating in sickness insurance) does not exceed 50 persons on the last day of the calendar month;

- the employer has paid the premiums for these employees, which these employees are obliged to pay;

- the number of employees did not decrease in any of the months (June, July and August 2020) compared to the number of employees in March 2020 by more than 10%;

- the sum of the assessment bases of employees in a single month did not decrease by more than 10% compared to the sum of the assessment bases of such employees in March 2020.

The very waiver of insurance premiums is then associated with the condition that for the month in which the employer applies the waiver of insurance premiums, it does not draw funds for partial payment of wage costs within the Antivirus A and B program.

The law is currently awaiting the president's signature.

Commuters

Newly, entry into the Czech Republic from abroad is governed by the following infographics:

In the case of commuters, from 15 June 2020, citizens of green EU Member States (or persons with a temporary or permanent residence in a green EU Member State) may enter the Czech Republic without further restrictions.

For entry from the orange and red countries, the same rules still apply in the case of commuters as before, which we informed you about in our recent update.