Is it possible to engage an employee to work on his day off?

Engaging an employee to work on a day off, established by the shift schedule (going to work), is usually prohibited.

It is allowed to engage an employee to work on the days off set for him in exceptional cases (part two of Article 71 of the Labor Code), namely for:

• averting or eliminating the consequences of natural disasters, epidemics, epizootics, industrial accidents and immediate elimination of their consequences;

• prevention of accidents that endanger or may endanger the lives or normal living conditions of people, death or damage to property;

• performance of urgent, not foreseen works, the immediate performance of which depends on the normal operation of the enterprise as a whole or its individual units;

• execution of urgent loading and unloading operations in order to prevent or eliminate idleness of rolling stock or accumulation of goods at points of departure and destination;

• continuation of work in case of non-appearance of the employee, who substitutes when the work does not allow a break; then the owner or the body authorized by him is obliged to immediately take measures to replace the substitute with another employee.

The permission of the elected body of the primary trade union organization (trade union representative) is required to attract a specific employee to work on his day off. After that, the owner or the body authorized by him issues a written order (order) to engage the employee to work on the day off. If the owner or a body authorized by him observes the rules that determine the procedure for engaging an employee to work on a day off, the employee is obliged to comply with the relevant order of the owner or the body authorized by him. Failure to do so is a violation of labor discipline. At the same time, an employee cannot be engaged on a day off for work that does not comply with the employment contract, regardless of the reasons for such involvement and compliance with the established procedure, if he does not agree to it, and therefore cannot be brought to disciplinary responsibility in such a case.