Informing the employee about the essential clauses of the employment contract

Freedom of labor is guaranteed by Constitution

Also, the right to work cannot be restricted according to the applicable legislation. However, in addition to the individual employment contract, in the case of foreign citizens it is also necessary to obtain certain documents, namely the work permit and the residence permit for work purposes, both issued by the General Inspectorate for Immigration.

Essential clauses of the contract

In addition, the employer has a legal obligation to inform the future employee about essential clauses of the contract before signing it. The following elements are considered essential and therefore must be brought to the attention of consciousness the person selected for employment:

• the identity of the parties;
• the workplace or, in the absence of a fixed workplace, the possibility for the employee to work in various places;
• the employer's headquarters or, as the case may be, his/her domicile;
• the position/occupation according to the specification of the classification of occupations in Romania or other normative acts, as well as the job description, specifying the job duties;
• the criteria for evaluating the employee's professional activity applicable at the employer level;
• job-specific risks;
• the date from which the contract is to take effect;
• in the case of a fixed-term employment contract or a temporary employment contract, their duration;
• the duration of the vacation leave to which the employee is entitled;
• the conditions for granting notice by the contracting parties and its duration;
• the basic salary, other constituent elements of salary income, as well as the periodicity of salary payment to which the employee is entitled;
• normal working hours, expressed in hours/day and hours/week;
• indication of the collective labor agreement that regulates the employee's working conditions;
• the duration of the probationary period. 

The legislator does not provide for the manner in which this information must be provided.

It can be observed that on the one hand, the legislator does not provide for the manner in which this information must be provided, but on the other hand, it stipulates that if the contract contains all the elements provided for in art. 17 paragraph (2), the obligation to provide information will be considered to be fulfilled by simply signing it.

By this, we consider that signing an information with essential contractual elements as a document separated of the employment contract, is not necessary, the presumption being that any person will read the employment contract before signing it.

The employee must have suffered a prejudice that they can demonstrate and quantify

However, the law also provides for the possibility for the employee to claim compensation from the employer in the event that the latter fails to fulfill this obligation to inform, but only in the event that the employee has suffered damage as a result of this inaction on the part of the employee. It is important to emphasize here that in order for the notification to be made, the employee must have suffered a prejudice which they can demonstrate and quantify and thus be able to claim concrete, not theoretical, compensation.

Moreover, since the obligation is considered to be fulfilled if the employment contract, or the additional act in the case where only a modification of the initial contract is signed, has been signed, the complaint will only be able to have as its object a possible omission from the individual employment contract of one of the essential clauses mentioned above.