In this issue:

• Amendments made by Government Emergency Ordinance no. 182/2020 to the legislation concerning the granting of paid days off to parents for supervising children, as well as amendments to the financial support for telework
  

Government Emergency Ordinance no. 182/2020 (GEO 182/2020) for supplementing the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 147/2020 (GEO 147/2020), as well as art. 6 of the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 132/2020 (GEO 132/2020), was published in the Official Gazette no 993 of 27 October 2020 and entered into force on the same day.

GEO 182/2020 provides with two significant changes. Firstly, it broadens the scope for the possibility to grant days off for parents to supervise children, provided through GEO 147/2020. Secondly, it provides with new eligibility conditions for the financial support for telework, provided by GEO 132/2020.

Amendments to GEO 147/2020

GEO 182/2020 provides that days off shall also be granted to parents in cases when partially or fully remote learning scenarios have been established, for the days when the classes are held remote.

For these scenarios, the number of days off shall be granted for the period of time provided in the decision of the county committee for emergency situations/Bucharest Municipality Committee and only during the state of alert period.

In case of the Scenarios 2 and 3, the days off shall be granted to parents only after the employer has applied the legal regulations in force for carrying out the activity through telework or work at home, if the workplace of the parent is compatible.

This means that the employer should assess if the activity of the respective employee can be performed remotely and, if so, to implement the telework or work from home scenario, as provided by Government Decision no. 856/2020 on the extension of the state of alert on the Romanian territory starting with 15 October 2020, as well as the establishment of the measures applied during it to prevent and combat the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Days off can also be granted to the parents and/or legal representatives of children suffering from chronic diseases, for whom the family doctor or specialist doctor issued a certificate for distance education, in the current pandemic context.

Amendments to GEO 132/2020

According to the new amendments, the financial support of RON 2,500 for telework shall not be granted to employers who have registered the implementation of telework in the general register of employees after the legal term for registering the amendment has passed.

Thus, the employers who did not register the implementation of telework in REVISAL with one business day prior to the amendment of the employment contract shall not be eligible for the financial support for telework. 

For more information, please contact Radu și Asociații SPRL team.

Prepared by:
Ana Flueran – Senior Associate, Radu și Asociații SPRL

For additional information, please contact:
Radu Diaconu – Associate Partner, Radu și Asociații SPRL
Anca Atanasiu – Managing Associate, Radu și Asociații SPRL