The State Labor Service inspections are a matter of concern for today's business. Today, the State Labor has extremely broad powers. What are labor inspectors allowed to do and what not, let's clear that up.
General rules
State control measures over the compliance with labor legislation should be implemented in the form of inspection visits and on-site inspections. Such measures are carried out by labor inspectors of the State Labor Service and its territorial bodies. Measures to control The labor inspectors of executive bodies of city councils of cities of regional importance and rural, settlement, city councils of united territorial communities (on issues of timely and full payment, compliance with minimum state guarantees of labor remuneration, labor relations formalization) oversee the compliance with labor laws as well.
The supervisory authority of the labor inspector is confirmed by an official ID issued by the State Labor Service. The basis for issuing the official ID of the labor inspector to an official of the executive body of the council is a letter from the village, settlement, city mayor, enclosed with a completed card containing labor inspector data.
What is allowed
Labor inspectors have the right, without prior notice:
- to access any industrial, office, administrative premises of the object where the hired staff works during inspection visits for the detection of unformed labor relations at any hour of the day, taking into account the requirements of the labor protection legislation;
- to get acquainted with any books, registers and documents, the keeping of which is stipulated by the labor legislation and which contain information on the issues that are the subject of the inspection visit;
- to ask the manager or employees of the site of the visit, other persons who possess necessary information, questions concerning the labor legislation, to receive verbal or written explanations on these issues, solely or in the presence of witnesses;
- to involve law enforcement officers in the presence of signs of a criminal offense or a threat to the safety of the labor inspector;
- to record inspection visits by means of audio, photo and video equipment, etc.
It should be noted that the requirement of the labor inspector for the object of visit to provide the documents or their copies or extracts from the documents, explanations, access to all kinds of premises, workplace, made within the authority, is biding.
What is not allowed
The current Procedure for Exercising State Control over the Compliance Labor Law (hereinafter – the Control Procedure) provides for certain actions that the labor inspector is not allowed to do.
In particular, the labor inspector can not disclose trade secrets and confidential information or information about production processes; the source of any complaint about defects or violations brought to the attention of the inspectors; notify the visit object; withdraw originals of financial, accounting, other documents, as well as computers.
It should be reminded that in accordance with Art. 4 of the Law of Ukraine "On Basic Principles of State Supervision (Control) in the Field of Economic Activity" No. 877-V of April 5, 2007 (hereinafter – Law No. 877), scheduled and unscheduled measures must be implemented during the business hours of the entity, established by its rules of internal labor regulations. Therefore, the norm of the Control Procedure, which provides for the possibility of conducting an inspection at any hour of the day, taking into account the requirements of the legislation on protection, in our opinion, is contrary to the requirements of Law No. 877.
The scheduled and unscheduled event concerning the business entity – legal entity must be carried out in the presence of a manager or a person authorized by the manager.
Important aspects of control that enterprise should be aware of
Among the principles of state control Art. 3 of Law No. 877 provides for the principle of the presumption of lawfulness of the entity's activities. Where the norm of a law or other legal act issued on the basis of a law, or norms of different laws or different legal acts, provide ambiguous (multiple) interpretation of the rights and duties of the entity or authority of the state supervisory authority (control), such rule is interpreted in the interests of the entity.
It is also should be noted that in accordance with Art. 10 of Law No. 877, the business entity during the exercise of state supervision (control) has the right to not allow the officials of the state supervisory (control) authority to carry out state supervision (control), unless the latter has approved and published on its own official website the uniform form of the act, which provides a list of questions regarding the degree of risk.
