Declaration of an emergency situation due to the Coronavirus pandemic affects the rights and obligations of employees and employers as well.

EMPLOYERS’ OBLIGATIONS:

Safety and health protection of employees at work is guaranteed by Art. 36 of the Constitution of the Slovak Republic, the Labour Code and the Act on Occupational Health and Safety, as amended. Employers are obliged to apply the general principles of prevention in the implementation of measures necessary to ensure safety and health at work.

Measures reflecting the current situation include:

• providing disinfectants at workplaces
• encouraging employees to better hygiene in order to minimize the risk of infection
• encouraging employees to seek medical advice and stay at home if they show any symptoms (i.e., fever, cough, difficulty breathing, muscle pain, headache, fatigue),
• minimizing business meetings with a higher concentration of participants,
• cancelling any business trips, especially those abroad,
• cancelling joint events,
• ordering medical check-up,
• closing all or part of a workplace,
• ordering quarantine for employees who have returned from abroad,
• considering limiting business partner visits.

EMPLOYERS’ AUTHORIZATIONS / POSSIBILITIES / MEASURES TO REDUCE INFECTION AT EMPLOYEES:

• interruption of work due to serious operational reasons on the part of employers (Section 142 (4) of the Labour Code) with entitlement to a wage compensation of at least 60% of the employee's average earnings - only if agreed with employee representatives and cannot be replaced by the employer's decision.
• interruption of work due to other obstacles to work on the part of employers with entitlement to wage compensation (Sec. 142 (3) of the Labour Code). Employers provide wage compensation in the amount of the average earnings.
• ordering vacation (Sec. 111 (2) and (5) of the Labour Code) - only with the consent of employees the notice period can be reduced 14 days before employees starts their vacation.

• Employers may agree with employees to take compensatory leave for overtime (Sec. 121 (3) and (4) of the Labour Code). Employees must agree with taking compensatory leave.
• work from home - with the consent of employees.
• care for a family member (Sec. 141 (1) of the Labour Code and Sec. 39 of Act No. 461/2003 Coll. on Social Insurance) if employees are parents of a child up to 10 years of age and the school facility attended by the child was closed or quarantined by the decision of authorities, employers must justify the absence of employees at work.
• quarantine - (Sec. 141 (1) of the Labour Code) if employees are in quarantine, employers must provide employees with time off.
• time off - (Sec. 141 (3) (b) of the Labour Code) employers may also grant employees time off for reasons other than those specified by the Labour Code, with or without wage compensation. Employers can thus agree with employees on the so-called unpaid time off for the duration of the “voluntary quarantine” or will provide them with wage compensation for that period.
• extra medical check-up: Another option is to refer employees to extra medical check-up. The body temperature of employees at the workplace can be checked by employers only with the consent of employees.

EMPLOYER'S AUTHORIZATIONS TOWARDS PERSONS WHO TRAVEL TO OR COME FROM ABROAD

From 13.03.2020 pending revocation, a mandatory 14-day home quarantine is valid for people with permanent or temporary residence in the Slovak Republic, returning from abroad, including persons living in the same household. Failure to observe home quarantine is subject to a penalty of € 1,659. Immediately upon returning to Slovakia, persons returning from abroad are obliged to notify this fact by telephone or electronically to their physician who will decide on home isolation.

Employers are entitled to cancel the planned and approved vacation, or change the time of its use, or to withdraw employees from vacation, if necessary, but to cover the costs incurred by employees in this respect.

Employers are not entitled to seek the destination of employees' holiday, and employees may or may not notify employers about the same. Given the current situation and prevention, we recommend that employers:

• appeal to all employees to ensure that the need for quarantine is not ignored and, in the event of a suspected disease, to report this to their physician in accordance with the above measure;
• postpone personal visits to quarantined persons 14 days after their return from abroad;
• advise employees to limit their travels abroad and, of course, not to send them on such trips.

QUARANTINE AND ENTITLEMENTS OF EMPLOYEES

Quarantine can only be ordered by the physician, it cannot be the employers' decision. During the quarantine period, employees are entitled to wage compensation in the same way as in the case of temporary incapacity to work, that is from the first to the third day of quarantine 25% of the daily assessment base of employees, in the period from the fourth to the tenth day of quarantine 55% of the daily assessment base; and this is paid by employers. From the eleventh day the employee is entitled to sickness insurance paid by the Social Insurance Company in the amount of 55% of the daily assessment base according to Sec. 33 of Act No. 461/2003 Coll. on Social Insurance. Employees are obliged to prove the quarantine order to employers in a trustworthy way. The relevant facility is obliged to confirm to employees proof of the existence of the obstacle to work and its duration.

NURSING ALLOWANCE

A nursing benefit from 16 March 2020 must be applied for by a new application. The Social Insurance Agency warns parents of the necessity to submit a new application for nursing care if they wish to receive it also for the period of the next 14 days, during which the school / pre-school facilities will be closed again. Last week (from 10 to 15 March 2020) some school / pre-school facilities (mainly in the Bratislava region) were closed at the discretion of the school head. At that time, parents first applied for a nursing benefit. Since 16 March 2020 they have been closed again, this time for the next 14 days in the whole territory of Slovakia, based on the decision of the Central Crisis Staff, the parents must apply for the benefit again.

Insured persons who wish to apply for nursing allowance due to closed schools and preschool facilities in connection with Coronavirus can do so as follows:

1 / By telephone 

• if insured persons are employees, it is necessary to call the branch of the Social Insurance Company according to the registered office of employers
• if insured persons are self-employed or voluntarily insured, it is necessary to call the branch of the Social Insurance Company according to permanent residence.

2 / By e-mail 

• send an application for nursing allowance to the relevant branch of the Social Insurance Company. The filled in application form of nursing allowance must be attached.

3 / By post 

• send the filled in form (application for nursing allowance) to the relevant branch of the Social Insurance Company.

4 / To the box 

• at the entrance to the building of the Social Insurance Company branch, the completed application form may be put.

Contacts to individual branches of the Social Insurance Company available here.

Allowance application form available here.

The Social Insurance Agency warns that it is not necessary to apply for the benefit immediately, it can be done later in a few weeks (the law allows up to 3 years retroactively). The branches of the Social Insurance Company have a large number of applications, therefore their priority is processing and it is appropriate to spread their income over a longer period of time. For these reasons, the Social Insurance Agency does not acknowledge receipt of applications.

Those parents who have not managed to claim nursing at the closure of the facility between 10 and 15 March 2020 and their child will be at home for the next 14 days may submit an application for nursing on one form - all service periods need to be completed personal and all-day childcare. Similarly, they can handle the application with one phone call to the branch for both periods, but please note that the phone lines are overloaded and therefore the Social Insurance Agency recommends sending requests by e-mail or post.

CONCLUSION:

We are constantly monitoring the situation and we will inform you in time about new facts. If you have any questions or requests, please do not hesitate to contact VGD Legal s.r.o., we will be happy to provide you with advice. For more information click on our website, Facebook or Linked-In. We would like to inform you about another two articles with the topic of COVID-19. Read more about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the contractual relations HERE. More information about deferral of tax for persons without electronic communication obligations until May available HERE.

VGD Legal s.r.o.

JUDr. Ondrej Šuriak, Managing Director and Attorney-at-Law

Disclaimer: The information provided to the Client is up to date as of 16.03.2020, it is for informational purposes only and does not replace any legal service pursuant to Act No. 586/2003 Coll. on Advocacy. VGD Legal s.r.o. does not assume liability for the completeness and accuracy of the information referred to in the paper. In case of questions about the information provided to the Client, the customer may ask VGD Legal s.r.o. for provision of legal services for this purpose.