Act on public service

(Act No. 313/2001 Coll. on Public Service)

The Act on Public Service (the "Act") regulates public service as well as labour relationships of employees in connection with performance of public service with the following employees:

• ministries and other central bodies, authorities, or offices performing state affairs with respect to the employees who do not perform neither the tasks of state administration nor state affairs in extent specified by a special regulation,
• budgetary organisations,
• contributory organisations,
• higher territorial units and municipalities,
• state funds,
• employers, for establishment of which an approval of a ministry is required according to a special regulation, excluding private schools and private institutions of education,
• the Social Insurance Company, the National Labour Office, the General Health Insurance Company, the Joint Health Insurance Company,
• resort health insurance companies, branch health insurance companies, company health insurance companies, or civil health insurance companies established under a special regulation,
• the Slovak Land Fund, and
• employers stipulated by a special regulation.

The public service means performance of work in public interest and performance of acts related to territorial self-administration of employees in labour relationships. The employee performing the public service is a natural person in a labour relationship with an employer mentioned in the preceding paragraph.

Compared to the Act on the Civil Service, the Act does not exclude application of the Labour Code and represents a special legal regulation to the general regulation contained in the Labour Code, whereas the labour relations of employees not regulated in this Act or in a special regulation shall be governed by the Labour Code.

A labour relationship can be established only with an employee who is capable of legal acts, meets conditions of trustworthiness, except for the employees being craftsmen or employees performing manual or manipulation works, meets also qualification criteria (if it is not stipulated otherwise by this Act), is healthy capable for performance of the relevant labour activities, has been elected or appointed, if it is required by a special act, and vows the required oath (except for the employees who shall perform craftsmen, manual or manipulation works).

The Act stipulates also material requisites of a labour contract. The labour contract mandatory contains the following information: place of work and day of commencement of work. The labour contract shall also include a detailed description of labour activities (scope of employment), which shall be performed by the employee within the agreed type of work. Contrary to the currently valid legal regulations, the Act stipulates that the labour contract must be concluded in a written form, otherwise it shall be deemed invalid.

The employer shall be obliged to notify the employee in writing on the amount and composition of its salary at concluding the labour contract as well as at any change of type of agreed work or change of the salary.

The Act also defined the term "salary", which shall mean the financial compensation provided to the employee for the work, however the compensation for over-time work, emergency work and proceeds provided to the employee according to a special regulation in connection with performance of employment activities, including but not limited to a severance pay and travelling expenses, shall not be considered as the salary.

Furthermore, the Act also stipulates the manner of rewarding of employees of public service within the system of salary categories and classification of employees to the salary classes according to satisfaction of qualification criteria and level of seriousness of the performed work in terms of its difficulty, responsibility, physical and mental load, which shall be performed by the employee within the description of employment activities.

In its second part, the Act contains also provisions on participation of employees in employment relations.

This Act will come into force on 1 April 2002.

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