Termination of Employment Contract in Latvia: Article 100 of Labor Law Explained

The termination of the employment relationship at the employee’s initiative is regulated Article 100 of the Labor Law. In everyday life, employees often refer to it as resignation, however, in the sense of the law, it is the termination of the employee’s employment contract.

In the five parts of Article 100 of the Labor Law, the procedure provided by the legislator for cases where the employee, of his own free will and carefully thought out decision, notifies the employer that he wants to terminate the legal employment relationship is determined.

Labor law

Article 100. Termination of the employee

(1) The employee has the right to terminate the employment contract in writing one month in advance, if the collective agreement or employment contract does not specify a shorter notice period. At the employee’s request, the period of temporary incapacity for work is not included in the notice period.

(2) An employee who is employed in paid temporary or other work in connection with his participation in active employment measures has the right to terminate the employment contract in writing one day in advance.

(3) The employee’s right to withdraw notice is determined by the employer, if such a right is not specified in the collective agreement or employment contract.

(4) If the employee and the employer agree, the employment contract can be terminated even before the notice period expires.

(5) The employee has the right to terminate the employment contract in writing, without observing the notice period specified in this article, if he has an important reason. Any circumstance that, based on considerations of morality and justice, prevents the continuation of employment legal relations shall be recognized as such a reason.

When terminating employment legal relations in accordance with Article 100 of the Labor Law, the employee’s free will is especially emphasized. This means that the employee is not obliged to write a notice if, for example, the employer requests it. The employer has other legal instruments to initiate the termination of the employment relationship.

Officially in writing, addressed to the employer

One of the main conditions that should be taken into account by the employee: the notice is an official submission by the employee, and it must be drawn up as a document.

It does not matter whether the employee will write it on paper or prepare it on a computer – the information contained is important.

According to a sworn lawyer and deputy chairperson of the Latvian Free Trade Union Union (LBAS) Gita Oškajathe notice must be able to identify the employer and the employee.

The identification of the employer means the name of the employer, that is, the company, institution and its manager, which was one of the parties to the employment contract. Therefore, the employee can clarify the name of the employer and the manager to whom the notice should be addressed by looking at his employment contract.

On the other hand, employee identification means the employee’s name, surname, position and contact information, such as e-mail address, residential address or telephone number.

“Upon receiving the employee’s notice, which is essentially a simple application, the employer must be able to identify the employee. Even if two employees with the same first and last name work in the company and occupy an identical position, they will have different email addresses and phone numbers. A phone number and an e-mail address will be enough for the employer to understand which employee wants to terminate the employment relationship,” explains the lawyer and LBAS representative.

Today, several institutions are approaching employees and developing internal documentation, including a submission form, in which the main attributes of the document are already included.

If such an application has been developed in the company, the employee is entitled to use it when concluding an employment contract.

It follows from the above that communicating with the employer or direct manager by phone, sending a text message with the text “from tomorrow I no longer want to work here”, is not considered an official submission – termination of the employment contract.

A letter sent by an employee from his private email address to the employer’s email address will also not be a notice if it is not accompanied by a document signed with a secure electronic signature.

If it has been decided to submit the notice in paper format, the legal specialists of the State Labor Inspection (VDI) recommend that the relevant document be prepared in two copies, i.e. one to be submitted to the employer in the office, and on the other – the copy of the employee’s notice – ask to make a note about the registration of the notice in the company’s records or, if there is no record keeping, then ask the employer to make a note about the receipt of the notice, indicating the date, signature and transcript.

The notice period is one month, but it should be sooner

The Labor Law generally provides for an employee’s notice period of one month from the date of its submission. What is stipulated in the law is related to the interests of the employer to find a new employee in sufficient time.

This means that the employee will have to work for one month from the date of submission of notice. The employer is not entitled to employ an employee for longer than one month even if another employee has not yet been found.

When writing a notice of termination, it is worth checking the employment contract to see if it contains a different (shorter) notice period.

At the same time, the employee has the right to indicate a specific date on which the employment relationship is to be terminated.

“If such a date is specified in the notice, accordingly For the fourth part of Article 100 of the Labor Law the employer and the employee will be able to agree on a shorter notice period,” emphasizes the head of the Customer Support Department of the State Labor Inspectorate Dace Stivriņa.

If the employment relationship is to be terminated immediately

In particularly tense situations, when the continuation of the employment relationship is not possible due to an important reason of the employee, the fifth part of Article 100 of the Labor Law provides for the right to terminate the employment contract immediately. The mentioned situation is the only one when the reason for terminating the employment contract is indicated in the notice. In other cases, it is not necessary for the employer to explain in writing why it has been decided to terminate the employment contract.

It should be emphasized that not every reason that the employee considers important will correspond to the scope of the fifth part of Article 100 of the Labor Law.

It has been recognized in court practice that the purpose of the relevant norm is to protect the employee against actions by the employer that do not correspond to the generally accepted view of morality or ethics, offend the employee as a person, create a situation that can be traumatic for the employee’s physical or mental health, etc. etc. Therefore, the legislator has provided for the termination of the employment relationship immediately. If the employee had to work for another month in such a situation, it could cause unjustifiable inconvenience or suffering.1

D. Stivriņa explains: “Each circumstance that, based on considerations of virtue and fairness, does not allow continuing employment legal relations is recognized as an important reason for the employee. In that case, the employee must indicate the specific circumstances that prevent him from continuing the legal employment relationship in the notice.

The Supreme Court has recognized that the general clause contained in the legal composition of the fifth part of Article 100 of the Labor Law – considerations of virtue and fairness – is based primarily on the subjective perception of the employee himself. Namely, the basis for the termination of employment legal relations in accordance with the fifth part of Article 100 of the Labor Law is the employee’s subjective attitude towards, in his opinion, working conditions that do not correspond to considerations of morality and fairness, which does not allow him to continue the employment legal relations and thus is the basis for their immediate termination. It is also recognized in legal science that the employee’s right to terminate an employment contract at any time of his own free will cannot be limited, as this would be contrary to the principle of the prohibition of forced labor established in international law.2

The VDI official additionally points out that, when concluding an employment contract in accordance with the fifth part of Article 100 of the Labor Law, it is also important to indicate in the notice the specific circumstances that were the basis for making the decision the qualifying features of the fifth part (not on the employee’s subjective attitude towards the mentioned circumstances) depends on whether the employer is obliged to pay severance pay.

The employer, upon receiving the employee’s notice of termination, is obliged to respect it and terminate the legal employment relationship immediately, regardless of whether the employer agrees or disagrees with the employee’s notice of termination.

have been submitted to the LV portal dozens of e-consultationsin which the employees want to find out whether, in the specific situation, the notice is justified by the fifth part of Article 100 of the Labor Law:

I submitted my notice and got sick

If, after submitting the notice, the employee becomes unable to work or a child who needs to be taken care of falls ill, the first part of Article 100 of the Labor Law provides the employee with the right to decide whether the time of incapacity to work is included in the notice period.

What does it mean? In such a situation, the employment relationship can be terminated sooner or later.

If the employee wants to terminate the employment relationship sooner and the sick time would be included in the notice period, then nothing needs to be done.

It remains to recover, and the employment relationship will be terminated within the stipulated period even if the incapacity for work continues.

On the other hand, if the employee who has given notice to the employer is interested in keeping the employment relationship longer, he must immediately inform the employer about this in writing, requesting that the period of temporary incapacity not be included in the notice period. In that case, the notice period will start running again when the leave of absence has been concluded.

Notice during vacation

Since the employee can terminate the employment contract at any time during the existence of employment legal relations, including temporary incapacity for work, vacation, parental leave, etc. c., the procedure for submitting a notice does not change.

For example, if an employee who has just gone on a full annual four-calendar-week employer-paid vacation, submits a notice to the employer on the same day and indicates a specific date of termination of the employment relationship, he will not have to return to work after using the vacation.

The situation is similar when the notice is given by an employee who is on parental leave. His termination will take effect within a certain period of time, that is, as specified in the notice, or within one month, and there will be no “month to work”.