Obligations of employers
Social Security – obtaining the A1 Certificate
Before posting workers to work abroad, the employer is required to obtain for each individual worker, in the Member State in which it is based, a certificate concerning the social security legislation which applies to the holder (Certificate A1).
Registering the beginning of providing services
Before starting to provide services, the foreign employer is required to register with the Employment Service of Slovenia (ESS) and provide information about:
- the company name and seat or the address of the employer;
- the name and date of birth of the responsible person for the employer;
- the names, dates of birth and citizenships of the posted workers and the addresses of their residences in the RS;
- the type of service;
- the location and duration of performing the service;
- the name and date of birth of the stated posted worker who will be a liaison between the foreign employer and the competent supervisory bodies and the person requiring service, when appropriate.
A foreign employer can register the beginning of providing services online (available in Slovenian) or in writing; he must send the written registration form, together with all the relevant information, to the following address:
The ESS issues a receipt of the completed online or written registration.
Guaranteeing rights
Foreign employers are required to guarantee rights to their workers for the duration of their posting to the RS in line with the regulations in the RS and the provisions of the branch collective agreement that regulate working hours, breaks and rest, night work, minimum annual leave, salary, health and safety at work, special protection for workers and guaranteeing equality if this is more favourable for the worker.
In the case of services that are not part of the industry, a deviation is allowed:
- regarding providing minimum annual leave and the salary in the case of temporary started works that are a constituent part of the contract of providing the goods and are carried out by experts employed by the provider as long as they last no more than eight working days;
- regarding providing the amount of salary, if carrying out the temporary work of posted workers is not longer than one month in a single calendar year.
The following legislation prescribes the basic scope of the aforementioned minimum rights of workers with which foreign employers are required to comply in guaranteeing the rights for their posted workers:
The Minimum Wage Act (Official Gazette RS, no. 13/10) (available in Slovenian) stipulates that the minimum wage is a monthly wage paid for work carried out in full time employment. The minimum wage thus includes all the elements of the wage specified in the Employment Relationship Act, that is, the base wage of the worker for a particular month, which takes into account the difficulty of the work and the extra payments to which the worker is entitled, except for the extra payments for overtime work. A worker who works overtime and receives minimum wage for full time work in accordance to his employment contract or the law is, in addition to minimum wage, also entitled to payment and extra payment for overtime work.
In accordance with the provisions of the Employment Relationship Act (available in Slovenian) (Official Gazette no. 21/13) the worker is entitled to extra payment for years of service and extra payment for special conditions of work, such as night work, overtime work, Sunday work and work on statutory holidays and free days, while the collective agreement can specify working conditions related to special burdens at work, unfavourable environmental influences and danger at work which are not related to the difficulty of work.
The minimum wage in the RS is determined once a year and is based on the harmonisation with the rise in consumer prices and after prior consultation with social partners. From 1 January 2015 onwards the minimum monthly wage amounts to 790,73 Euros (gross).
The amount of extra payments is determined by the industry collective agreement.
Provisions in the Employment Relationship Act (available in Slovenian) (Official Gazette of the RS no. 21/13) give the worker the right to annual leave in every individual calendar year; this leave may not be shorter than four weeks, regardless of whether the worker works full-time or part-time. The minimum number of days of a worker's annual leave depends on the distribution of working days per week in respect to an individual worker. A worker has the right to one additional day of annual leave for every child under the age of 15. An older worker, a disabled worker, a worker with at least 60% physical impairment or a worker who takes care of a physically or mentally handicapped child has the right to at least three additional days of annual leave.
The employer is required to pay holiday allowance to the worker who has the right to annual leave, at least at the rate of the minimum wage. If the worker only has the right to partial annual leave or has a contract for shorter than full-time, then the worker only has the right to a partial allowance.
The provisions of the Employment Relationship Act also regulate working time and minimum rest, by stipulating that the working time consists of effective working time (the time in which the worker works and is at the employer’s disposal and fulfils his work obligations according to the contract) and a break, to which a worker employed full-time is entitled during daily work in the amount of 30 minutes. The Act further stipulates that the full-time workload cannot be longer than 40 hours per week. The law or the collective agreement can define full-time work that is less than 40 hours per week, but not shorter than 36 hours, except for the positions where there is an increased risk of injury or damage to health.
In addition to a break during work time, the worker has the right between two consecutive work days to a rest of at least 12 uninterrupted hours within a period of 24 hours and to a weekly rest of at least 24 uninterrupted hours within a period of seven successive days, with the minimum duration of the weekly rest calculated as the average of 14 consecutive days.
The Employment Relationship Act also defines special conditions of work and employment to ensure special protection for, among others, those workers who have not yet reached 18 years of age and workers entitled to such protection because of pregnancy or parenthood.
The Employment Relationship Act prohibits direct and indirect discrimination of workers – employers have to ensure equal treatment of workers regardless of nationality, race or ethnicity, national or social origin, gender, skin colour, health condition, impairment, religion or conviction, age, sexual orientation, family situation, union membership, property status or any other personal circumstance.
The fundamental aspects of occupational health and safety are regulated with the Health and Safety at Work Act (available in Slovenian) (Official Gazette of the RS no. 43/11) or its implementing regulations that regulate specific individual areas or procedures. The Occupational Health and Safety Act prescribes the following fundamental tasks of employers:
- Every employer must elaborate and adopt a written statement on safety with which he defines the method and measures for providing occupational health and safety.
- The employer guarantees occupational health and safety primarily with the following measures:
- entrusts the performance of occupational safety tasks to an expert, and the tasks of protecting health to an authorised physician;
- adopts measures to secure fire safety, first aid and evacuation;
- keeps the employees informed about the implementation of new technologies and equipment;
- trains employees for safety at work;
- provides the workers with means and equipment for personal occupational safety, health check-ups of workers and periodic check-ups of work environment and equipment.
- The employer determines specific health requirements for a particular work.
- The employer can only allow workers to work with dangerous materials if these materials are equipped with documentation in the worker’s language.
- The employer must inform the Labour Inspectorate about the beginning of the work 15 days in advance.
- The employer must inform the Labour Inspectorate immediately about any fatality, injury causing a worker’s occupational disability, collective accident, dangerous phenomenon or established occupational disease.
- The employer must allow the participation of the worker's representative in discussing questions connected to occupational health and safety.
- The employer has to finance all activities and measures related to safe and healthy work.
The employer must maintain all the records and keep all the documents required by law.
In accordance with the Labour Market Regulation Act (Official Gazette of the RS, no. 80/10, 40/12 – ZUJF, 21/13, 63/13, 100/13, 32/14 – ZPDZC-1 in 47/15 – ZZSDT) (all available in Slovenian) the employer may start activities to provide work of the workers for the client if:
- in the past two years, a fine for a breach of the regulations governing employment relationships, employment and work of foreigners, occupational health and safety, illegal employment and labour market, has not been finally imposed;
- in the period of the last two years the employer has had no outstanding overdue obligations relating to the payment of workers;
- in the period of last two years the employer was not listed as a taxable entity with unpaid outstanding tax liabilities or listed by the Financial Administration of the Republic of Slovenia as an entity not submitting an annual balance sheet and on the day of submitting the application to start activity has no open unpaid tax liabilities;
- complies with the conditions required for human resources, organisation, space and others, which are more in detail prescribed by the minister responsible for labour;
- his registered principal activity is providing temporary labour force;
- deposits a bank guarantee of at least 30.000 Euros;
- in case of a foreign employer, he must have a branch established on the territory of the RS;
- a foreign employer who wishes to carry out the activity of providing workers for the users in the territory of the RS submits an application for issuing a permit and inclusion into the register at the ministry responsible for labour. The application must include a copy of a document, not older than one year, proving that the employer is allowed to carry out the activity in the state where it is based, a notarised translation of this document into Slovenian and of all those documents proving that he complies with the conditions listed above which cannot be obtained ex officio. The inclusion into the register is made the day when the ministry responsible for labour issues the decision as well as a certificate about the decision to the employer for providing work. The activity can begin with the day of inclusion into the register.
Along with ensuring the rights for posted workers defined above, the foreign employer is also required to respect, in addition to stipulations of the regulations listed, the provisions linked to these rights set in the industry collective agreement for the service provided, if such an agreement exists for the territory of the state. The register of collective agreements (available in Slovenian), contracted for the territory of the state is kept by the ministry responsible for labour, while the data that employers need for the accounts of all the remunerations based on the most important collective agreements can be obtained by selecting the appropriate collective agreement on the Slovenian Chamber of Commerce website.
Obligations to supervisory bodies
A foreign employer is required to ensure that when he posts his workers to the RS, the following documents are kept on the location where the activity is carried out and can be provided for inspection at the request of the supervisory body: a copy of the contract between the client and the service provider, or a copy of the act of posting and its translation into Slovenian; a certificate of submitted registration of the provision of services; copies of employment agreements and their translations into Slovenian; copies of payroll lists; register of presence; proof of wages paid out or copies of equal documents for all posted workers; and A1 Forms.