Road transport check: Employers from the old Member States do not comply with statutory duties9/10/2017|Press releasesThe Ministry of Transport in cooperation with the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs initiated an extraordinary preventive action focused on checking upon road transport workers sent from abroad. The checks took part on border crossings at Rozvadov and Hatě at the end of September. The aim was to inform foreign employers operating in international freight transport about a new duty following from the Act on Employment. The checks showed that employers from the “old” Member States were worse in the compliance with the new law than their colleagues from the new Member States. The amended law introduced the duty of an employer based in another EU Member State, who sent its employee to the Czech Republic, to keep a copy of the employment contract in the language of the country where the employee was sent, in the place of work. The checks were also necessary with regard to the present negotiations about the Mobility Package in the EU. Within the negotiations, certain Member States request restriction of transport operated by carriers from the new EU states due to alleged unfair competition consisting in lower wages of their drivers. The purpose of the checks was to point out to administrative requirements of EU laws concerning carriers and drivers. These among others include submitting the employment contract in the language of the country where the employee was sent. The Ministry of Transport designed the action as informative and intended to use the findings for the support of its argumentation in the negotiations. The most important finding was the breaching of duties by all employers from the “old” Member States, who on the other hand, are the ones who stress violation of rules by carriers and drivers from the new Member States. None of the drivers from Germany, Austria, Italy or other countries knew about the duties connected with their being sent to the Czech Republic and they were surprised to learn how many documents they need to carry. On the contrary, all drivers from the new Member States had the employment contracts in several European languages, which means that it is only eastern drivers who are subject to road checks in the territory of our western neighbors, that misuse the rules for sending their drivers for the protection of their own markets, not for the protection of employees, as is often argued during the negotiations. The CR shall use the ascertained findings in the negotiations about the Mobility Package and shall inform the ministers of countries with the highest number of violations accordingly. The preventive action involved checking the total of 58 drivers, 31 on the border crossing at Rozvadov and 27 at Hatě. Most of the drivers and employers were from Germany and Poland. There were 7 drivers from countries outside of the European Union. The checks were performed by the Regional Labor Inspectorate for the Plzeň Region and the Karlovy Vary Region and the Regional Labor Inspectorate for the South Moravian Region and the Zlín Region with the police and mobile units of the Road Transport Services Center. If shortcomings were ascertained, the driver was only notified of the statutory duties and he was given an information brochure which specifies the duty to have copies of documents proving the existence of an employment relation, translated into Czech, in the vehicle. The brochure contains the information in four languages: Czech, English, German and French. You can download mentioned brochure below. More information on websites of State Labour Inspection Office.