The work lives for three years – Newspaper Kommersant No. 155 (7356) dated 08/25/2022

The Ministry of Education and Science wants to oblige universities to conclude contracts with teachers for at least three years, and not for an arbitrary period, as it is now. The agency prepared such amendments to the Labor Code at the request of the Constitutional Court (CC). The trade union “University Solidarity” believes that the amendments will make the problem of labor rights of teachers less acute, but they will not solve it fundamentally.

The Ministry of Education and Science has prepared a draft amendment to the Labor Code following the decision of the Constitutional Court. They considered the complaint of the teacher of the State University of Management Alexei Podakov. For many years, the university has concluded fixed-term contracts with him, the minimum period of which is not defined by law. Such workers are hired according to a special procedure – through competitions.

After going on a long vacation, the man was fired. Mr. Podakov decided to sue the university: he demanded reinstatement, recognition of the employment contract as concluded for an indefinite period, and payment for his long vacation. All judicial instances refused the teacher, citing his own agreement with the condition of the urgent nature of the employment relationship. However, on July 15, the Constitutional Court sided with the teacher. “The specific term of the employment contract is often actually single-handedly determined by the head of the educational organization,” the Constitutional Court noted in the resolution. “At the same time, its decision does not depend on the decision of the collegiate body that conducts a competition for filling the position. Thus, the value of the democratic competitive procedure is depreciated, and the teacher, as a rule, is forced to agree to the proposed conditions, sometimes unfavorable for him.

According to the position of the Constitutional Court, the practice of unreasonable conclusion of short-term employment contracts and their arbitrary extension in isolation from the decisions of the competitive commissions leads to a violation of the rights of the teaching staff, deprives them of the rights to decent rest, stable employment, as well as continuous work experience. The court demanded that government agencies rectify the situation.

The Ministry of Education and Science agrees with this position. In the explanatory note to the bill, the department points to cases of repeated conclusion of employment contracts for an academic year or even a semester between the same parties for quite a long time. And this does not correspond to “constitutional prescriptions on justice, equality, the rule of law, a legal and social state, in which one of the necessary conditions for ensuring a decent life and free development of a person is stable employment … and respect for human labor is also guaranteed.” The Office proposes to specify that fixed-term contracts should be for a minimum of three years and a maximum of five years. About the minimum period of three years indicated in its decision and the Constitutional Court.

Andronik Arutyunov, co-chairman of the University Solidarity trade union, believes that the bill will reduce tensions, but will not solve the problem completely: “The amendments do not in any way require universities to conclude open-ended contracts. As a result, the teacher will still be in limbo. Not in a year, then in three, if he turned out to have too long a tongue and not the best relationship with his superiors, they simply will not renew the contract with him. He calls the minimum term of three years taken “from the ceiling.” “I don’t know of training programs that last three years. Most often they are designed for two, – says Mr. Arutyunov. – Therefore, for most of the teachers, the contract will also end in the middle of the program. And the university will fire him. What’s the point of this?”

Fixed-term contracts made it possible to rotate staff in a rather painless way for employees, says Vice-Rector of the State University of Management Alexander Troitsky: “And in order to dismiss a teacher who has an indefinite contract, attestation is carried out. And its failure or rejection of it has a rather negative impact on the career of the teacher himself. In a situation with short contracts, everything is decided by an open competition.” The expert is sure that if the applicant’s candidacy raises doubts, then universities will prefer to conclude civil law contracts with such employees. “However, they, unlike labor, do not give the employee any social guarantees,” he points out. “So for the universities themselves, the situation will not change dramatically.”

Higher School of Economics Vice-Rector Alexei Koshel supports the amendments: “The limitation in terms of work is associated not only with the huge paper work of the teachers themselves, but also with the stress that teachers are subjected to by frequent passage of competitive elections.” According to him, HSE used to have a practice of concluding one-year contracts, mainly for newcomers who are just starting to work at the university. However, three-year and five-year contracts are the most common at HSE.

Anna Vasilyeva