The legal regulation of leave is contained in particular in Sections 211 to 223 of the Labour Code. Only workers in an employment relationship have an automatic right to leave by law, not workers working on the basis of an agreement to complete a job or an agreement to perform work.
A distinction is made between leave for a calendar year or its proportional part and supplementary leave which, however, is only for certain workers (e.g. workers who work underground in the extraction of minerals or in the excavation of tunnels and galleries).
The right to leave depends on the number of whole multiples of the worker's weekly working hours worked in the relevant calendar year and their leave assessment. If a worker works 52 full multiples of their weekly working hours in a calendar year, they acquire the right to full leave assessment for the calendar year. If they work fewer multiples, they are entitled to a proportional part of this assessment. However, if the worker works less than 4 multiples of their weekly working hours in the relevant calendar year or their employment lasts less than 28 calendar days, they will not be entitled to any leave. Some compensatory periods (e.g. taking leave, obstacles to work, public holidays, etc.) are also considered as time worked for leave purposes. However, overtime work is not included in it. The basic leave assessment is at least 4 weeks in a calendar year (see Section 212(1) of the Labour Code), and this may be extended by an individual or collective agreement or by an internal regulation of the employer. The amount of leave for workers of employers who reward workers with a salary (not a wage) is 5 weeks in a calendar year (e.g. workers of the state, territorial self-governing unit, etc.), for pedagogical staff and academic staff of universities then 8 weeks a calendar year.
The right to leave is expressed as a certain number of hours of leave. When taking leave, hours are also taken into account, i.e. for each working day when the worker takes leave, the number of hours of leave corresponding to the length of the shift they had scheduled for that day is deducted from their total leave entitlement (if they took leave, for example, on a day they had a scheduled 12-hour shift, they will be deducted 12 hours of leave).
The period of taking leave is determined by the employer, although the Labour Code limits it in many respects (e.g. it cannot determine leave from one day to the next, as it must do so at least 14 days in advance, unless the worker so agrees; it is not possible to determine the period of drawing leave for certain obstacles to work, e.g. a period when the worker is declared temporarily incapable of work, etc.). The employer should determine the leave to be taken so that the worker uses it in the calendar year in which the right to it arose (but part of the leave may be transferred to the following year at the request of the worker).
During the period of taking leave, the worker is entitled to compensatory wages/salary of 100% of their average earnings.
Example No 1:
A worker whose employment lasted for the entire calendar year, with standard weekly working hours of 40 hours per week and a leave assessment of 4 weeks, worked all their scheduled shifts in this calendar year, i.e. a total of 2 088 hours (including compensation hours). They thus worked 52 whole multiples of their weekly working hours (2 088:40 = 52.2), and thus acquired the right to leave for a calendar year of 160 hours of leave (leave assessment × weekly working hours, i.e. 4 × 40 = 160) .
Example No 2:
The worker began their employment on 1 October 2021 and worked 529 hours in the standard weekly working hours of 40 hours per week by the end of the year. Their leave assessment is 5 weeks. Thus the worker worked 13 full multiples of their weekly working hours for the calendar year (529/40 = 13 225), thus they are entitled to a proportional part of the leave for the calendar year, specifically to 13/52 of their leave assessment for the calendar year, i.e. 13/52 of 200 = 50 hours of leave.