Labour & Social Security Legislation of Bulgaria
I. Bulgarian Labour Legislation
Normative
provision
The Bulgarian
legislation related to labor law is characterized by codified and detailed
provisions established in our Constitution, the Labor Code, a number of legal
acts and many regulations and rules.
The Labor Code
lays down the principles, rules and manner for labor implementation on the
territory of the Republic of Bulgaria within the framework of a labor
relationship. The Code determines the territorial scope of the effect of
Bulgarian labor legislation; scope of persons in relation to which it is applied;
trilateral cooperation; levels of labor negotiation; employees’ organizations;
employers’ organizations; basic labor rights and obligations; types and content
of labor contracts; general contents and amendment of the labor relations;
preserving labor relations in case of change of the employer; working hours,
rests and leaves; labor remuneration; termination of labor relations and
explicitly listed grounds for it; compensations related to labor relationships;
safe and healthy working conditions; special protection of certain categories of
employees; labor disputes and control for protection of the labor legislation.
Laws containing
provisions for labor relations may be divided into two basic groups: general
laws developing the Labor Code and special laws regulating labor relations of
special categories of employees. Within the first group fall: Protection Against
Discrimination Act, Safe and Healthy Working Conditions Act, Encouragement of
Employment Act, Settling Collective Labor Disputes Act, Employees’ Secured
Claims in Case Of Employer’s Insolvency Act. The second group includes:
Higher Education Act, State Employee Act, Protection, Rehabilitation And Social
Integration of Disabled Persons Act, Ministry of Internal Affairs Act, Defense
and Armed Forces Act, Judicial System Act and Civil Aviation Act.
The number and
types of sub-legislative normative acts in the sphere of labor law do not allow
for their exhaustive enumeration, therefore we shall specify only several of
those acts which apply in respect to all labor relations. Those are: Regulation
on Working Hours, Rests And Leaves, Regulation on Additional and Other Labor
Remunerations, Regulation of Business Trips and Specialization Abroad and
Regulation of Business Trips in the Country, Regulation on Work-book and Length
of Service, Regulation No 3 on obligatory preliminary and periodical medical
examinations of employees, Regulation ¹ 4 on documents required for execution of
a labor contract, Regulation ¹ 5 on illness where employees suffering from those
illness, profit a special protection according to article 333, para 1 of
the Labor Code, Regulation No 7 on the minimum requirements for healthy and safe
working conditions in the place of work and in case of the use of working
equipment and Regulation No 14 on the service centers for labor medicine, etc.
Of course, along with the national legislation, the Republic of Bulgaria has ratified a number of Conventions in the sphere of labor relations, such as: the Convention on working hours, the Convention on unemployment, the Convention on employees’ representatives, the Convention on annual paid leaves and the Convention on discrimination in the labor sphere and professions, etc. These conventions represent an integral part of the Bulgarian legislation and in case of controversy between any internal law and any of these Conventions, Bulgarian courts are obliged to apply directly the provisions of the respective Convention.