Law no. 213/2020, amending and supplementing Law no. 53/2003, was adopted on 8 September 2020 and will have repercussions on the management of human resources.

The amendments deal with:

• The conciliation of individual labour disputes; and
• Certification of employees on labour law.

On the first matter, the changes will imply modifications to individual employment contracts and internal regulations. Moreover, in case of individual labour disputes, the company must refer them to a certified external consultant specialised in labour law.

On the certification of employees on labour law, this will modify the company’s human resources and payroll operations, and will require the presence of an internal service specialised in human resources and payroll, but only for Human Resources specialised companies. In fact, the initial draft law obliged companies to guarantee the presence of a certified expert in all companies of all sizes, but this was subsequently amended so that this expert shall be part of HR companies only.

The second point would imply a substantial change for companies since it intends to regulate the new profession of “expert in labour law” with no apparent need within the Romanian context. Certification is costly and it is provided only by the National Union of Experts in Labour Law (UNELM), after training, even if experts in this field could also continue to be tax consultants, accountants, or salary inspectors.

These and other points of concern were raised by the Concordia Employers’ Confederation, an IOE Member, before the Parliament and the President of Romania, prior to the adoption and promulgation of the law. In its letter dated 14 September 2020, Concordia raised its concerns on the fact that “as a rule, regulated professions restrict freedom of work and therefore this solution is used sparingly, only for cases of public order and where the negative impact could be very harmful to society (eg medicine, law, notary, health and safety at work, audit, etc.). Regarding the proposed profession, the social need for its regulation has not been identified”. Some of these arguments were considered in Parliament during the debate for the final draft law, which lead to the removal of the obligation for each employer to have a certified expert in labour law and limited it to companies offering specialized HR advice.

Concordia, underlined that the draft law “leaves many questions and ambiguities regarding implementation. In addition, at the main level, it raises the issues detailed above in relation to the regulation of a profession in a field which has neither public policy implications nor a significant major impact”.