Job guarantees in civilian employment: dismissal, post and service record

What is happening

On mobilisation, or on signing a contract for service, an employment contract is suspended rather than terminated. The employee leaves to serve, the job and the post are kept for him, and the contract continues to exist. Employers breach this rule more often from ignorance than from bad faith: they record a resignation or a dismissal for absence.

The second typical situation is the return. The employee arrives with his service documents and finds the post filled, the department reorganised, or different and lower-paid work on offer. Formally this looks like a transfer; in substance it circumvents the guarantee.

The third concerns money and the service record. Sums accrued before the suspension are unpaid, leave is not granted, and the period of service is not counted when holiday pay is calculated. Such claims are brought together with the claim for reinstatement, in a single action.

What the law says

• The employment contract of a mobilised or contract serviceman is suspended, not terminated. Dismissal at the employer's initiative during that period is not permitted.
• The employee keeps his job and his post. On returning he resumes the same work, not whatever work is offered.
• The period of suspension counts towards the employment record and towards entitlement to leave. Leave for that time is granted rather than lost.
• The employer must pay out everything accrued before the suspension. Non-payment also gives a right to compensation for the delay.
• The law allows only a short time limit for a dismissal claim, running from the day the order or the employment record was handed over. A court may extend it where the delay had a good reason.
• Article 351.7 of the Labour Code suspends the employment contract and keeps the job, and Article 23 of Federal Law No. 76-FZ on the Status of Servicemen provides additional guarantees that operate alongside the employment guarantees, not instead of them.

What we do

• We examine the orders and entries recording your dismissal or transfer and identify the breach of procedure.
• We prepare a demand to the employer to revoke the order and reinstate you in your post.
• We draft complaints to the labour inspectorate and the prosecutor's office where the breach is clear from the documents.
• We prepare the claim for reinstatement, recovery of pay for the period of enforced absence, and compensation.
• We conduct the case in court and see that a reinstatement judgment is enforced.
• We pursue the correct entries in your employment records and the inclusion of the service period in your record.

What we need from you

• The employment contract and any supplementary agreements to it.
• The order of dismissal, of suspension, or of transfer — whatever was served on you.
• Your employment record, whether electronic or the record book with its entries.
• Service documents: the call-up paper, the extract from the order enrolling you in the unit, the contract, the unit's certificate.
• Pay slips and statements of payments for your last months of work.
• Correspondence with the employer, including messages and letters about the dismissal.