THE FRAMEWORK FOR DETERMINING THE RIGHT AT WORK DURING THE EPIDEMIC

Abstract

During the epidemic of the disease COVID-19, in the realization of primarily individual labour relations (because collective labor relations are at the moment “on hold”), there are numerous questions to which there are no answers yet (especially in the case-law). The most common explanation we can find in the fact that it is an epidemic (pandemic) but also, we should emphasis the “impotence” of the (unprepared) labour market, but also the inflexibility of autonomous regulations of labor relations and the “unprepared” employers to the regular response to the “demands of the crisis”. In “special circumstances” the application of the principles of modern, democratic labour law (among others, there should be highlighted the principle of protection of the person at work, the principle in favorem laboratoris, the principle of protection of employment rights, all with the ubiquitous principle of constitutionality and legality), the principle of pacta sunt servanda (principle of compulsory law) in contractual employment and others, should not be questioned. There is an initiative to fi nd the answers to controversial questions that in practice (in applicability) at the time of the epidemic, most often, determine the content of labour relations: the “intervention” in the employment contract, autonomous regulation of labour relations, working hours, wages and benefits, safety at work, application of the principle of the most favorable right for workers and others. It is necessary to apply very restrictively any restriction of the right to work, which, otherwise, in accordance with the Constitution of the state, can be regulated only by law, but also by “measures” applied during the epidemic only within the law and the Constitution.