Telework in Ukraine

On January 18, Labor Initiatives legal director George Sandul and Inna Kudinska, a lawyer affiliated with LI and SC in Ukraine, presented their report on specifics of telework (or remote work) regulation in Ukraine. 

The release of reports was organized in the framework of cooperation between the ILAW Network and its members – researchers in Ukraine, Moldova, and Poland. The reports examine the impact of telework on a range of worker rights issues, including work hours and the right to disconnect, access to health and safety protections, discrimination, worker misclassification, privacy, and the right to collective bargaining.

During their speeches, Inna Kudinska and George Sandul highlighted peculiarities of law provisions on telework in Ukraine, particularly the difference between remote and home-based work, model agreements on remote and home-based work, and a separate work regime – flexible working hours. 

Special attention was given to telework regulations during wartime as remote work for many Ukrainians became a lifeline and a real option to preserve livelihood amid the war in Ukraine. Along with that, presenters underlined the importance of observance of procedural requirements during transfer to and hiring for telework. It is not sufficient to have a laptop and work outside an employer’s enterprise to be a teleworker. Remote work should be properly formalized to guarantee labor protections and benefits for remote workers. 

In addition, further review of telework legislation is vital too, in particular in such arrears as the right to disconnect, tackling isolation of workers, right to privacy, and organizing of remote workers. 

The full report you can find here.