Most frequent violations

If your employer has not paid you your salary, you have several options. You can demand the payment of the salary by bringing legal action against your employer to the labour court, with the written payslip, issued by the employer, counting as a valid document on the basis of which the worker can propose legal enforcement. The claims from employment relationships have a limitation period of five years.

In the following cases, if your employer:

• has not paid your salary for at least two months (or the salary paid was significantly cut), or
• has not paid your salary by the legal deadline or by the date agreed twice in the period of six months, or
• has not provided you with work for more than two months and has not paid you the legally prescribed salary compensation, or
• has not paid your social security contributions in full in three months consecutively or in six months;

you have the possibility for an extraordinary termination (without notice) of the employment contract under the regulations of ZDR-1  exceptionally. In this case the employer will also have to pay you, in addition to back pay and contributions, the severance pay stipulated for cases of ordinary termination of the employment contract for business reasons and compensation equalling at least the lost payment for the period of notice. 

You can report any violation connected to failure of paying the salary to the Labour Inspectorate of the RS, but it is important to note that if the labour inspector discovers violations regarding salary payments, he can only sanction the employer; his actions cannot achieve the actual payment of the salary. Only the Labour Court can enforce payment of the salary.

If the employer has unfoundedly terminated your employment contract or the termination was oral, without due procedure or documents, you can bring a suit to the Labour Court within 30 days from the day when you learnt about the violation and demand that the unlawfulness of the termination be established. Termination of the employment contract must always be written and served to the worker in a proper manner, and before that the employer has to follow the appropriate procedure prescribed by the law. If the employer has not done that, you can also report such action to the Labour Inspectorate of the RS. If the inspector discovers a violation regarding the procedure or serving the termination, he can fine the employer for the violation, but his measures cannot achieve the cancellation of the termination. Only the Labour Court is competent to do so.

If the employer does not guarantee the return travel to Slovenia for the worker after the work has been completed, such action is a violation and the worker can report it as such to the Labour Inspectorate of the RS. After returning home the worker can then sue the employer for reimbursement of the costs incurred with the return and for compensation for distress and inconvenience.

If the worker finds himself abroad without the possibility or means for returning home, he can also turn to a diplomatic mission of the RS (for example, embassy or consulate). The diplomatic mission can then issue a document for return to Slovenia (for example, an emergency travel document or ID) and can contact the worker’s family or a relevant centre for social work if the worker has no other option or cannot pay his own return home. If the State where the worker is does not have a Slovenian diplomatic mission, he can turn to a diplomatic mission of another EU Member State which will issue him an “emergency travel document”.

If the worker does not come to work and does not justify his absence, such behaviour constitutes a violation of contractual obligations to which the workers has bound himself by signing the contract. Following to how such violations of obligations from the employment relationship are defined in the employer’s general acts, the employer can issue a disciplinary sanction for the worker – if disciplinary liability is established – in accordance to the rules from the disciplinary procedure (if the employer has one in place), but such sanction cannot permanently alter the worker's working and legal situation. If the employer suffered damage because of the worker’s unauthorised absence, the worker must reimburse the employer – of course, only after due procedure which establishes the amount of the damage incurred, the responsibility for it and the perpetrator.

An unauthorised absence from work is also a reason for an extraordinary termination of the employment contract agreement, meaning that the employer can extraordinarily (without notice) terminate the employment contract to the worker who for at least five consecutive days has failed to come to work and has failed to notify the employer about the reasons for his absence even though he should and could do so. Before the termination the employer must carry out a special procedure and pay attention to deadlines which, in case of an extraordinary termination, are relatively short. In this case the worker’s employment contract is terminated on the first day of the unauthorised absence from work, unless he returns to work by the time the extraordinary termination is served.

The answer to this question depends on the reasons for the worker to be doing his work in the described manner. If these are disciplinary violations, the employer can start a disciplinary procedure against the worker. He can also (in a separate process) demand compensation from him if the worker’s action (or omission thereof) has caused damage to the employer.

If the reasons for the worker’s unprofessional or untimely work are of a health nature, the employer can send the worker to a preliminary medical examination in the following cases:

• reduced working capability,
• illness or injury that occurred outside of work which requires a longer treatment and where there is a doubt about the worker’s ability to perform in his current job,
• in case of suspicion of diseases of addiction that can influence the worker’s ability,
• in case of workers who have taken sick leave for illness or injury five or more times in one year.

The authorised physician has ten days to send the employer his evaluation of the worker’s ability to meet the special health requirements for a particular job in a work environment. On his recommendation (and with the consent of the worker’s personal doctor) it is possible to begin the process for the worker to claim disability allowance rights.

The employer must then take into account the results of the medical examination and provide the worker with such work that will not aggravate his health condition. If he has no such work, he can begin the procedure for terminating the contract on the grounds of incapacity or disability if it is a worker who also has disability status. In such a case the employer must beforehand obtain the opinion of a special commission.

Failure to attain the expected performance results because the worker has failed to carry out work in due time, professionally or with due quality is grounds for an ordinary termination of employment for reasons of incompetence. Before such termination, the employer has to complete a special procedure, defined in ZDR-1 (ERA).

Similar to what we answered in the previous question, the employer can start a disciplinary and damages procedure. Additionally, a procedure before dismissal can be taken and present the cancellation for reasons of incompetence or misconduct (violation of contract obligations or other obligations of the employment relationship). Disregarding instructions from the employer can, in some jobs and in some circumstances, also endanger the health or life of the worker and his co-workers or other people. For this reason the employer has the possibility to prohibit the worker to work for the duration of the procedure. In the time of prohibition the worker has the right to salary compensation, which is half of the average of his salary for the previous three months.