Introduction to Labour Law

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Chapter 452 of the Laws of Malta

This is an overview of employment law. It tends to be more concentrated on the employer – employee relationship. It also concentrates on how we deal with human resources. Transfer of business is an important issue – taking existing employees as well as new ones. One needs to know what the implications are if one has to merge with another company. One has to establish what the problem areas are and what the basic solutions are. One needs to know the rules for dismissal. The company has to take into account the rights of the employee as well as the industrial relations aspect – consulting the Unions, impact on employers’ positions. Protection of employees is very important.

Chapter 452: Employment Industrial Relations Act

The law was brought into effect in 2002 and started being effective in 1st January 2003. The law has been changing according to EU standards. There has been some controversy in the industrial relations aspect (there haven’t been much changes since 1976). The law is supplemented by a vast number of legal notices (sets of regulations issued by the minister under the powers issued to the minister by the Act). The main Act gives us the main principles. There are 40 sets of regulations, all of which supplement the principles with detailed regulations.

Definitions:

* Comparable Whole Time Employee: there should be no differentiation or discrimination in treatment between the full timer and the part timer. The employer should not have an incentive to abuse a part timer. The comparable whole time employee is the baseline against which everything is compared. In order to establish the conditions of employment, one has to look at the comparable whole time employee and determine how much he would receive for 10 hours of work. This means that a part timer should receive the same pay (pro-rata). Everybody’s hour is to be measured against comparable whole time employee. Vacation and leave also...