Not only at their own will: when an employee can resign before the expiration of a fixed-term employment contract
Employees working under a fixed-term employment contract cannot resign at their own will before the contract expires without valid reasons. The procedure for early termination of such contracts is defined by the Labor Code of Ukraine.
According to Article 21 of the Labor Code of Ukraine (LCU), an employment contract is an agreement between an employee and an employer, under which the employee undertakes to perform specified work, and the employer — to pay wages and provide proper working conditions. Issues of termination of labor relations are regulated by Articles 36, 38, 39, 40, and 41 of the LCU.
As provided by Article 39 of the LCU, the procedure for terminating a fixed-term employment contract at the employee's initiative differs from the rules applied to indefinite employment contracts according to Article 38 of the LCU.
By concluding a fixed-term employment contract, the employee agrees to work for a specified period and therefore cannot unilaterally terminate the labor relations before the contract expires without valid grounds.
At the same time, Article 39 of the LCU allows early termination of a fixed-term employment contract at the employee's request in cases of:
- illness or disability that prevents the performance of work;
- violation by the employer of labor legislation, collective or employment agreements;
- presence of grounds defined in part one of Article 38 of the LCU.
Such grounds include relocation to a new place of residence, transfer of husband or wife to work in another locality, admission to an educational institution, inability to live in a certain area according to medical opinion, pregnancy, childcare for a child under 14 years old or a child with a disability, care for a sick family member or a person with a Group I disability, retirement, employment through a competitive selection, as well as other valid reasons.
As previously written by the "Judicial and Legal Newspaper", an employment contract is an agreement between an employee and an employer (employer — an individual), under which the employee undertakes to perform work defined by this agreement, and the employer (employer — an individual) undertakes to pay the employee wages and provide working conditions necessary for the performance of work, as stipulated by labor legislation, collective agreements, and the parties' agreement.
The employment contract regulates the process of organizing labor activity, while under a civil-law contract, the process of organizing activity remains outside its scope, and the purpose of the contract is to achieve a certain result.
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