site.btaTrade Union Reports over 200,000 Right-to-Work Violations in 2023

Over 200,000 right-to-work violations were established in 2023, most of them related to the assignment of work outside the employee's duties, Todor Kapitanov, Vice President of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB), told reporters on Tuesday. He presented the 9th Annual Report on violations of the right to work.

CITUB drew up the report citing alerts to the union and the General Labor Inspectorate (GLI) Executive Agency.

GLI reported that 48,570 inspections in 2023 found 229,801 violations, including 111,983 related to the performance of the employment relationship, 116,688 related to the healthy and safe working conditions and 1,468 failures to act on instructions. An average of five violations were established by each inspection. Companies paid nearly BGN 15 million in fines, compared to BGN 11 million in 2022. Kapitanov commented that employers could invest the money in improving working conditions  instead of paying fines.

In 2023, CITUB received over 17,000 alerts about right-to-work violations, most of which, 3,590, were about healthy and safe working conditions. The rest of the alerts were about wages, working hours and breaks, holidays, compliance with union rights, social security rights, and the termination of employment, among others.

The largest number of reported violations were about the assignment of work not specified in the job description, lack of free medical checkups, non-payment of extra work, employer's interference in union activities, preventing employees from using their full annual leave, forcing staff to take leave at a specific time, and non-payment of overtime.

Labour rights violations were reported by 3,707 people with university education, 2,107 with secondary education, 250 with primary education and 33 with elementary education. Most violations were reported by the 46-55 age group, with most of the alerts sent to CITUB.

The trade union insists on legislative amendments in the interest of employees. Kapitanov commented that the Labour Code must not be one of the most violated laws.