Leasing of Employees in Serbia

Although the Serbian Labour Act fails to regulate the leasing of employees, it is tacitly being applied in practice by many employers irrespective of the open issues.

Legal framework

The Ser­bian Labour Act does not con­tain pro­vi­sions reg­u­lat­ing the leas­ing of employ­ees, but it is being applied in prac­tice and tol­er­at­ed by the author­i­ties as many employ­ment agen­cies are active in leas­ing employ­ees in Ser­bia. Accord­ing to unof­fi­cial infor­ma­tion, over 60 employ­ment agen­cies in Ser­bia are pro­vid­ing the ser­vice of leas­ing employ­ees, and more than 10,000 employ­ees are being engaged through leas­ing.

It is expect­ed that the new Labour Act, cur­rent­ly in prepa­ra­tion, will intro­duce the con­cept of leas­ing employ­ees giv­en that Ser­bia has recent­ly rat­i­fied the Inter­na­tion­al Pri­vate Employ­ment Agen­cies Con­ven­tion of the Inter­na­tion­al Labour Organ­i­sa­tion, which will be applied from March 2014. No infor­ma­tion is yet avail­able to the pub­lic.

Leas­ing of employ­ees in prac­tice

In prac­tice, many employ­ers are opt­ing to engage their per­son­al through leas­ing to avoid the some­what bur­den­some and restric­tive pro­vi­sions of the Labour Act, espe­cial­ly those reg­u­lat­ing ter­mi­na­tion. Tech­ni­cal­ly, leased employ­ees are employed by the employ­ment agency and sim­ply per­form their work at the premis­es of the employ­er leas­ing them. The employ­ment agency, as the for­mal employ­er, remains ful­ly liable for the leased employ­ees, includ­ing with respect to employ­ment ter­mi­na­tion (save for health and safe­ty oblig­a­tions, which remain also with the employ­er leas­ing the employ­ees).

There­fore, as employ­ees gen­er­al­ly have a high suc­cess rate in dis­putes with employ­ers, employ­ers are more and more opt­ing to engage per­son­nel via leas­ing to avoid these and oth­er risks.

Con­trac­tu­al rela­tions

As the leas­ing of employ­ees is not allowed per se, employ­ers and agen­cies usu­al­ly reg­u­late their rela­tions such: (i) by con­clud­ing a busi­ness-coop­er­a­tion agree­ment through which the employ­er engages the agency to recruit employ­ees, and (ii) agen­cies con­clude the employ­ment agree­ments with the employ­ees, stip­u­lat­ing that the employ­ees’ place of work is the premis­es of the employ­er leas­ing them. The agen­cies then, based on the busi­ness-coop­er­a­tion agree­ment, invoice their ser­vices to the employ­er month­ly to com­pen­sate the costs of the salaries paid to the leased employ­ees.

Under this option var­i­ous modal­i­ties of con­trac­tu­al con­struc­tion appear in prac­tice. The best approach for an employ­er leas­ing the employ­ees is to stip­u­late in the busi­ness-coop­er­a­tion agree­ment with the employ­ment agency that the agency, pur­suant to the employ­er’s request, will imme­di­ate­ly remove the leased employ­ee from their premis­es, and the leas­ing agency will remain respon­si­ble for dis­miss­ing the employ­ee.

Aligned risks

The­o­ret­i­cal­ly (hav­ing in mind that leas­ing employ­ees is not allowed), in the event of a con­trol, the labour inspec­tor could order that employ­ment agree­ments be con­clud­ed between such employ­ees and the employ­er, and that employ­ment agree­ments with the agency be ter­mi­nat­ed.

Many oth­er open issues remain until this prac­tice is cov­ered in the Labour Act, such as whether the employ­ee must, while work­ing, com­ply with the inter­nal reg­u­la­tions of the agency or of the employ­er, and whether the employ­ee can be law­ful­ly dis­missed by the agency for breach of duties encom­passed under the inter­nal reg­u­la­tion of the employ­er. There has been no such case, so it remains to be seen how it will be dealt with.

Final­ly, hav­ing in mind the sit­u­a­tion in prac­tice and the fact that many well-known employ­ment agen­cies are active­ly leas­ing employ­ees in Ser­bia, it appears that the author­i­ties are tem­porar­i­ly tol­er­at­ing this prac­tice until it is reg­u­lat­ed in the New Labour Act.

According to unofficial information, over 60 employment agencies in Serbia are active in leasing employees, and more than 10,000 employees are being leased.

Iznajmljivanje (lizing) zaposlenih u Srbiji

Iako Zakonom o radu Republike Srbije nije regulisano “iznajmljivanje” zaposlenih, mnogi poslodavci prećutno primenjuju ovaj institut u praksi, bez obzira na veliki broj otvorenih pitanja.

Zakonski okvir

Zakon o radu Repub­like Srbi­je ne sadrži odredbe koji­ma se ure­đu­je “izna­jmlji­van­je” zaposlenih, iako se ono pri­men­ju­je u prak­si dok ga nadležni organi toler­išu, obzirom da u Srbi­ji pos­to­je mnoge agen­ci­je za privre­meno zapošl­ja­van­je koje pruža­ju usluge izna­jmlji­van­ja zaposlenih. Pre­ma nez­vaničn­im podaci­ma, preko 60 agen­ci­ja za privre­meno zapošl­ja­van­je pruža usluge izna­jmlji­van­ja zaposlenih, a više od 10.000 se angažu­je na pomenu­ti način.

Očeku­je se da insti­tut “izna­jmlji­van­ja rad­ni­ka” usko­ro bude reg­ulisan i u Srbi­ji, ima­jući u vidu da je Srbi­ja nedavno rat­i­fiko­vala Kon­ven­ci­ju Među­nar­o­dne orga­ni­zaci­je rada o pri­vat­nim agen­ci­ja­ma za zapošl­ja­van­je, koja počin­je da se pri­men­ju­je od mar­ta 2014. godine.

Izna­jmlji­van­je zaposlenih u Srbi­ji

Mno­gi poslo­davci se u prak­si opre­delju­ju da angažu­ju rad­nike putem lizin­ga, kako bi zao­bišli pril­ično stroge i restrik­tivne odredbe Zakona o radu, a naroči­to one koje se odnose na otkaz ugov­o­ra o radu. Izna­jml­jeni zaposleni prak­tično zaključu­ju ugov­or o radu sa agen­ci­jom za privre­meno zapošl­ja­van­je, dok rad obavl­ja­ju u pros­tori­ja­ma dru­gog poslo­davca koji ih izna­jmlju­je od Agen­ci­je.

Agen­ci­ja za privre­meno zapošl­ja­van­je, kao for­mal­ni poslo­davac, ima punu odgov­ornost za izna­jml­jenog zaposlenog, uključu­jući i odgov­ornost u vezi sa otka­zom ugov­o­ra o radu (osim obaveza koje se odnose na bezbed­nost i zdravl­je na radu za koje je odgov­o­ran poslo­davac koji izna­jmlju­je zapos­lene).

Sto­ga, obzirom na gen­er­al­no veli­ki pro­ce­nat uspe­ha zaposlenih u rad­nim sporovi­ma, poslo­davci se sve češće odluču­ju da angažu­ju rad­nike putem lizin­ga, kako bi izbegli ove i druge rizike.

Ugov­orni odnosi

Poš­to izna­jmlji­van­je zaposlenih samo po sebi nije dozvol­jeno, poslo­davci i agen­ci­je obično ure­đu­ju svo­je odnose na jedan od sledećih nači­na: (i) zaključen­jem ugov­o­ra o poslovnoj sarad­nji na osnovu kojeg poslo­davac angažu­je agen­ci­ju da pron­ađe i stupi u rad­ni odnos sa zaposlen­i­ma, i (ii) zaključen­jem ugov­o­ra o radu između agen­ci­je i zaposlenog, kojim se pred­viđa da će mesto rada zaposlenog biti u pros­tori­ja­ma poslo­davca koji ih izna­jmlju­je. Agen­ci­je zatim, na osnovu ugov­o­ra o poslovnoj sarad­nji, fak­turišu svo­je usluge poslo­davci­ma na mesečnom nivou radi naknade troško­va zara­da isplaćenih izna­jml­jen­im zaposlen­i­ma.

U prak­si se radi reg­ulisan­ja i sprovođen­ja insti­tu­ta “izna­jmlji­van­ja zaposlenih” zaključu­ju različite vrste ugov­o­ra. Najbolji prist­up za poslo­davca kojem se izna­jmlju­ju zaposleni je da se ugov­orom o poslovnoj sarad­nji koji se zaključu­je sa agen­ci­jom za privre­meno zapošl­ja­van­je pred­vi­di da agen­ci­ja na zahtev poslo­davca bez odla­gan­ja ukloni izna­jml­jenog zaposlenog iz nje­gov­ih pros­tori­ja, i da ona sama bude odgov­or­na za rask­id ugov­o­ra o radu sa zaposlen­im.

Povezani rizici

U teori­ji (s obzirom na to da izna­jmlji­van­je zaposlenih nije dozvol­jeno), u sluča­ju kon­t­role inspekci­je rada, inspek­tor je ovlašćen da naloži poslo­davcu da zaključi ugov­or o radu sa izna­jml­jen­im zaposlen­i­ma i da se rask­ine ugov­or o radu zaključen između izna­jml­jenog zaposlenog i agen­ci­je za zapošl­ja­van­je.

Pos­to­je i mno­ga dru­ga pitan­ja koja će osta­ti otvore­na sve dok Zakon o radu ne uvede i ne reg­uliše insti­tut “izna­jmlji­van­ja zaposlenih”, kao što su pitan­je da li je zaposleni dužan da se tokom rada pridrža­va opštih aka­ta agen­ci­je ili poslo­davca, i da li je agen­ci­ja po zakonu ovlašće­na da rask­ine ugov­or o radu sa zaposlen­im zbog povrede radne obaveze propisane opš­tim aktom poslo­davca. Do sada u prak­si nije bilo sporo­va u vezi sa otka­zom ugov­o­ra o radu izna­jml­jenih zaposlenih, sto­ga osta­je da se vidi kakav bi stav zauzeli sudovi u vezi s tim.

Kon­ačno, s obzirom na situaci­ju u prak­si i na čin­jenicu da mnoge svet­s­ki poz­nate agen­ci­je za privre­meno zapošl­ja­van­je aktivno pruža­ju usluge izna­jmlji­van­ja zaposlenih u Srbi­ji, može se zaključi­ti da nadležni organi privre­meno toler­išu pri­menu “izna­jmlji­van­ja zaposlenih” u prak­si, verovat­no iz razlo­ga jer se reg­ulisan­je ovakvog insti­tu­ta očeku­je u sko­ri­jem roku.

Prema nezvaničnim podacima, preko 60 agencija za privremeno zapošljavanje pruža usluge lizinga zaposlenih, a više od 10.000 radnika je angažovano putem lizinga.