About the legal nature of “non-working days”

Abstract

The changes in public life caused by the coronavirus pandemic have created many problems in many different areas. The sphere of social and labor relations was no exception, which was perhaps the most significantly affected by these events. Among the various measures taken by the state to reduce the risk of mass infection, there are also such measures as suspending the activities of organizations, and, consequently, the ore activities of their employees. In the regulatory legal acts that introduced these measures, such suspension of work is called “nonworking days”. Since these regulations do not contain any specifics, it is necessary to determine which of the known labor-legal categories “non-working days” belong to in order to apply the relevant norms in practice. In the Arsenal of Russian labor legislation, there is a category, all the signs of which coincide with the signs of “non-working days” — this is an exemption from work. Classification of types of work release by different criteria gives a strong reason to assert that “non-working days” are one of its types. This means that all the legal consequences of “non-working days” coincide with the consequences that a particular type of exemption from work entails: this applies to the inclusion of this period in different types of seniority, the preservation of the employee’s place of work during this period, and therefore the impossibility of changing the terms of the employment contract without his consent, including earnings saved for this period in average earnings, etc. These practical conclusions have become possible precisely because the corresponding legal qualification of the nature of “non-working days” has been given, even though their name is clearly unfortunate.

Keywords:

non-working days, coronavirus pandemic, exemption from work, source of labor law, employment contract, right to health protection