On July 19, 2022, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the Law of Ukraine "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Simplifying the Regulation of Labor Relations in the Field of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses and Reducing the Administrative Burden on Business Activity", Reg. №5371.

The Ukrainian Agrarian Council (UAC) actively participated in the work on the law, whose experts provided justifications and reasoned explanations of the positions of business representatives regarding the urgent need to simplify procedures for personnel document circulation, accounting, payroll, etc.

"It is the bill №5371 that gives an employer and an employee the right to conclude a free labor contract, which will provide for the result, not the work process. Workers will be able to conclude a contract with the employer on their own terms, so that a person in market conditions can realize himself by selling his hired labor for a high salary. Therefore, we thank the People's Deputies for making such an important decision, which will contribute to the creation of jobs destroyed as a result of the war," commented the UAC Chairman Andri Dykun.

Labor relations are still governed by the outdated Code of Labor Laws, developed in the USSR, when the state was the only employer. This strict regulation of labor relations does not meet the current needs of the labor market and creates numerous unjustified bureaucratic obstacles.

The new law introduces a contractual regime for the regulation of labor relations with the possibility, at the discretion of the employer and the employee, by mutual agreement, to include in the written labor contract provisions regarding the creation and termination of labor relations, the wage system, labor standards, the amount of wages, allowances, surcharges, bonuses, rewards and other incentive, compensation and guarantee payments, norms of working hours and rest, duration of weekly rest and other rights and guarantees that were previously strictly limited by the Code of Labor Laws of Ukraine. At the same time, the provisions of this law provide for the preservation of the basic universally recognized labor rights and guarantees of employees.

From now on, a special regime for the regulation of labor relations can be introduced between an employee and an employer who is a subject of a small or medium-sized business with the number of employees not exceeding 250 people, or between an employer and an employee whose monthly salary is more than eight times the minimum wage.