The Milli Majlis Committee for Labour and Social Policy had a meeting in the videoconferencing mode on 13 February and, opening it, Committee Chairman Musa Guliyev announced that the agenda dealt with the draft amendments (the first reading) to the Labour Code of the Azerbaijan Republic.

As many as 12 amendments to the Code are earmarked in total; they are essentially concerned with legal regulation of the methods employed to eradicate informal employment. The official statistical information indicates that there are 600,000 citizens employed informally around the country, which situation harms their working conditions, recreation provisions and receipt of other social benefits as much as it damages their future pension plans. Citizens ought to be employed in keeping with the requirements of the Labour Code while their social protection should be made stronger, according to Mr Guliyev.

Telling the assembly about the Bill, Head of the Social Legislation Department of the Milli Majlis Staff Adil Valiyev quoted Article 1.2 of the Action Plan to Prevent Informal Employment in the Azerbaijan Republic, affirmed by the presidential decree No 3287 dated 9 October 2017. It follows from that Article that the Labour Code, the Tax Code, the Civil Code and several other regulatory instruments are to be amended for the prevention of attempted tax-evasion and evasion also of the compulsory state social insurance fees by the abuse of civil legal transactions in the process of labour relations. The motioned amendments to the Labour Code are specifically about the prevention of both the evasion and the abuse in question.

It was said then that many articles of the Labour Code using the wording ‘labour relations’ preconditions the application of a good many labour standards and regulations contained in the Code. The new Article 4-1, to be added to the Code for the sake of employers’ higher awareness of labour relations, lays down the terms and conditions of the latter. It is stipulated in the Article in question that, pursuant to the labour legislation including also the principles of the Labour Code, labour relations are such relations in which, subject to the obligations defined in collective agreements and in contracts, the employee carries out, in person and at the workplace accommodated with the employer, his/her job duties consistent with his/her profession or that position to which he/she has been accepted, elected or restored, on condition of salary and/or remuneration and with him/her observing the in-house discipline and rules of the employing entity. In addition, and in the context of the same relations, the employer shall provide the employee with working conditions and certain provisions and shall ensure the safety of the employee’s labour.

It is also intended to make certain amendments in Article 7 of the Code that would list the situations classified as cases originating labour relations between parties and would emphasise that it is disallowed to formalise such cases by means of civil law agreements. Rather, written employment contracts conforming to Part II of the said Article shall be entered into effective the day on which such situations were identified.

Deputy Chair of the Committee Malahat Ibrahimghizi and the MPs Sattar Mehbaliyev, Jala Aliyeva, Vugar Bayramov, Ziyad Samadzade, Aghil Mammadov, Arzu Naghiyev, Sevinj Huseynova, Soltan Mammadov and Rauf Aliyev commended the motioned amendments to the Labour Code. They said they found that the amendments were going to reinforce the labour legislation, emphasised the current importance of this matter, praised the work done in a short while to ensure that employment agreements were concluded across the country and pointed out the importance of increasing the public awareness in this field.

At the end of the meeting the Committee members recommended that the Bill on amending the Labour Code of the Azerbaijan Republic be tabled for the first reading deliberations at a plenary session of the Milli Majlis.

Committee Member Aziz Alakbarov and employees of the concerned departments of the Milli Majlis Staff took part in the meeting as well.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis