Employment Contract and Labor Relations: Specific Features of Legal Regulation and Issues of Law Enforcement

The paper analyzes the legislative features of defining the concept and mandatory provisions of the employment contract. It substantiates the thesis that current legislation does not incorporate into the definition of an employment contract any mandatory characteristic without which such a contract cannot be concluded, and by which it can be distinguished from civil-law contracts entered into for the purpose of utilizing human labor. It further argues that legislatively granting courts the authority to recognize duly executed civil-law contracts as employment contracts is both impractical and detrimental, including to the economic security of the state. The article demonstrates the negative consequences for the protection of employees’ rights and lawful interests arising from the provision in Article 309.2 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, which allows numerous micro‑enterprises and non‑profit organizations to refrain from adopting local normative acts and instead incorporate all terms of employment into the employment contract itself. The authors substantiate the adverse effect on labor dispute statistics (regarding the existence of employment relationships) of the provision in Article 16 of the Labor Code recognizing the emergence of such relationships based on the employee’s actual admission to work with the employer’s awareness or on the employer’s instruction. The paper proposes legislative and practical solutions to the aforementioned issues and provides definitions of an employment contract and employment relationship that should be incorporated into the Labor Code of the Russian Federation. It further recommends the removal from the Labor Code of Article 19.1 and certain parts of Articles 11, 15, 16, and 67.