Question: What are the penalties that the employer is legally entitled, according to the new labour law, to impose on a worker? In the event of a salary deduction penalty, what is the maximum limit for this deduction? Does the employer have the legal right to prevent the worker from taking his annual leave as a disciplinary penalty? Please advise.
Answer: The employer or his representative — as per Article 39 of the new labour law- may impose to the worker any of the following penalties: a) Written notice; b) Written warning;
c) Deduction of not more than (5) five days per month from the wages) Suspension from work for a period not exceeding (14) fourteen days and non-payment of wage during the suspension days.
The employer can also impose: “e) deprivation from the periodic bonus for a period not exceeding one year, regarding the establishments that adopt the periodic bonus system and the worker is entitled to obtain it according to the provisions of the employment contract or the establishment’s regulations; f) deprivation of promotion at the establishments having a promotion system for a period not exceeding two years). Termination of service while preserving the worker’s right of end of service benefits.
Clarify disciplinary actions
The employer shall draw up a schedule of penalties clarifying each of the disciplinary sanctions set out in Article 39 of the law. None of the penalties set out in Article 39 may be imposed on the worker except after informing him in writing of the charges against him, hearing his statements, investigating his defence and recording the foregoing in a report to be deposited in his private file and annotated with the penalty at its end.
The worker shall be notified in writing of the penalties imposed thereon, the type and amount thereof, the grounds for their imposition and the penalty he will face in case of recurrence.
Not more than one penalty
Moreover, the employer should take into consideration that there are some rules for imposing these disciplinary sanctions as mentioned in Article 41 of the new labour law: “It is not permissible to impose any disciplinary sanction to the worker for an action committed by him outside the workplace unless it is related to work. It is not permissible to impose more than one disciplinary sanction for a single violation, according to the provision of Article 39 hereof.
The employer does not have the right to prevent the worker from taking his annual leave as a disciplinary penalty because annual leave is one of the rights of the employee and it is not one of the penalties specified by Article 39 mentioned above.
