Interesting practice

Law Firm “Mostovenko & Partners” used to represent interests of a popular governmental institution in the labour dispute with the employees who appealed against the order on establishment of the work hours schedule in the division they used to work in.

They motivated their claim on unlawfulness of the order on changing essential labour conditions issued by the enterprise by references to the regulations of the branch ministry, which establish remuneration for 4 hours of work per day for the employees of their profession.

Taking into account this norm, the claimants thought that their working day should be 4 hours, and upon exceeding this norm, the overtime shall be paid at the double rate.

Studying the documents submitted by the enterprise the specialists of Law Firm “Mostovenko & Partners” determined that the changes of essential labour conditions introduced by order appealed by the claimants only implied moving the employees of the division where claimants used to work from 6-days working week to 5-days working week.  As for the claimants’ references to the norms of Orders of the branch ministry, they had nothing to do with the working hours regulation as they were approved to establish remuneration rates for the employees of respective industry.

Protection of interests of the governmental institution based on these arguments turned out to be successful, and the court refused in satisfaction of claim on the cancellation of order, and recognized the actions of the management staff of the governmental institution legal insofar as it concerned decision-making on the regulation of work hours regime of its own employees.