Skliarenko, Sydorenko & Partners helped the company optimize its staff during the quarantine period

During the quarantine imposed by the Cabinet of Ministers due to the spread of COVID-19 in Ukraine, business faced a difficult task: the state obliges the employer to strictly observe the rights of employees, but at the same time does not compensate for their forced downtime. In such circumstances, staff reduction is perhaps the only alternative to shutting down a business.

The team of Skliarenko, Sydorenko & Partners Attorneys at Law has developed a mechanism and successfully implemented a project to dismiss the top manager of a subsidiary with foreign capital.

“A large number of companies where the labor of workers cannot be used remotely fell under the actual prohibition of their activities. Fitness centers, shopping malls, catering establishments, public services organizations are required to pay employees downtime at a rate of at least 2/3 of the tariff rate,” said Skliarenko, Sydorenko & Partners lawyer Tetiana Borysenko, who developed the anti-crisis project for the client. “The Code of Labor Laws also does not provide for the possibility of forcibly sending an employee on vacation, including at his own expense, and there must be a good reason for dismissal at the initiative of the employer.”

At the same time, any violation of labor legislation, including forced dismissal “of one’s own will”, entails the responsibility of the employer.

“From this angle, the question of how to survive under quarantine takes on special significance when a business needs high-quality legal support,” says Oleksandr Skliarenko, managing partner of the law firm, who led the project. - Having deeply studied the client’s business processes, we managed to develop a mechanism for optimizing the staff of their company and put it into practice in compliance with the guarantees of employees and the interests of the employer. The legitimacy, effectiveness and efficiency of our mechanism convincingly proves the fact of the absence of lawsuits and complaints to regulatory authorities”.