Additional question – Newspaper Kommersant No. 9 (7454) dated 01/19/2023

The government should increase the amount of new payments to Russian healthcare workers, expand the list of their recipients, and also more clearly regulate the work of the regions in terms of their accrual – two major trade unions of medical workers in Russia addressed the government, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Labor with such proposals. The Ministry of Health promised to provide clarifications for the subjects, but stressed that the main parameters of the system of new surcharges, including their size, legal status and availability for employees, were approved.

The two main trade unions of medical workers in Russia – the trade union of health workers of the Russian Federation and the trade union “Action” – appealed to the government and relevant ministries with criticism of Decree No. 2568, adopted on December 31, which introduces additional payments for a number of people employed in the Russian healthcare system. Recall that in December last year, at a meeting with members of the Human Rights Council, Vladimir Putin announced the introduction from 2023 of additional payments from the federal budget for 1.1 million employees of the Russian healthcare system (2.5 million people are employed in it). Depending on the position and place of work in 2023, they will be able to receive from 4.5 thousand rubles. up to 18.5 thousand rubles. monthly — payments will be financed from the federal budget, expenses for this year will amount to 152.4 billion rubles. (see Kommersant dated December 8, 2022).

Despite the fact that government decree No. 2568 was published only last week, as indicated in its letter to the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Labor dated January 12, the trade union of health workers of the Russian Federation, they have already received many applications on the procedure for its application. In order to prevent “ambiguous interpretation on the ground”, the trade union asks to clarify the controversial norms of the document with the help of methodological recommendations for its application. In particular, the trade union proposes to fix that surcharges are not taxed on the income of individuals, and if they were not accrued on time, then the employer should be liable under Article 236 of the Labor Code (establishes liability for delayed wages).

The trade union is also asking the ministries to clarify whether a number of workers with specific employment conditions will be able to receive payments – for example, employees of inter-district hospitals organized from central district and district hospitals, taking in emergency rooms and antenatal clinics, as well as personnel of specialized ambulance teams, inpatient emergency medical departments assistance, disaster medicine centers. In addition to these categories, according to the health workers’ union, ambulance drivers should be included among the recipients of payments. In addition, the trade union proposes to take into account district coefficients, including coefficients for work in special climatic conditions, when calculating the amount of payment to employees. Recall that earlier the government intended to include coefficients in the formula for calculating payments, this is not in the published version of the decree, the Ministry of Health, together with the Ministry of Labor, promised to provide additional clarifications on the application of the government decree for the regions.

A similar proposal was made in a letter to the government dated January 4 by the Action trade union. He also proposes, when calculating payments, to take into account the hours actually worked on external and internal part-time jobs, hours of overtime work and work on weekends and non-working holidays (in cases provided for by the Labor Code) in excess of the monthly norm of working time. The trade union also considers it necessary to increase the payments established by the decree for ambulance workers and expand the circle of their recipients, including anesthetist nurses, nurses at the reception of calls, ambulance drivers.

The Ministry of Health confirmed to Kommersant that they had received an appeal from the trade unions addressed to them, and also noted that some of their proposals “have already been taken into work.” However, partly the position of the ministry is already clear. Thus, the Ministry of Health confirmed that additional payments to medical workers will not be taxed, referring to paragraph 79 of Article 217 of the Tax Code, while employers will not have to take them into account when calculating sick leave and vacation pay. Answering the question why the list of recipients of new surcharges did not include the personnel of hospitals in large cities and ambulance drivers, the department recalled that payments are not new approaches to the formation of a system of remuneration for healthcare workers, but “a measure of social support for workers in medical organizations.”

Anastasia Manuylova