Cuban Adolescents Facing an Employment Contract / Dora Leonor Mesa

By Lic. Dora Mesa Crespo Coordinator of the Cuban Association for the Development of Early Childhood Education, and Lic. Odalina Guerrero Lara, Attorney for the Cuban Law Association.

Labor Law is a system of principles governing employment relations.  Thus, we understand that the essence of Labor Law is precisely the employment relationship.

Analysis of the draft Labor Code Law [1]

Chapter III. EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT. Section One Formalities and the Capacity To Make Employment Contracts

Article 20 (Chapter III) provides:

ARTICLE 20: The employment relationship between employer and employee is formalized with an employment contract…

In the Draft of the Labor Law Code, hereinafter Draft, when it defines Contract, it omits that Article 20 refers only to an individual contract.

The Individual Employment Contract is entered into individually between the employee and the employer, which can be a person, although reality shows us that in one employment relationship there can be many physical or legal parties, simultaneously or successively, corresponding to the employer.

The Draft of the Labor Code, Chapter III, Article 20 explains it in the following manner:

Acticle 20.  The employment relationship between the employee and the employer is formalized via an Employment Contract, in which the employee, on one side, is committed to perform the work, follow disciplinary rules and the employer on his side, is required to pay wages to the employee and will guarantee safe working conditions, labor rights and social security which are established by legislation.  The contract will be considered null if there are any violations to this Law.

The employment relationship

Per professor Cavazos, the employment relationship starts at the same moment in which the employee begins work; however, the employment contract is achieved with the simple fact of agreement.  Therefore, there could be instances of the existence of an employment contract without an employment relationship; it occurs when a contract is entered into and it is agreed that the service will be performed at a later time.

The existence of an employment relationship presumes the existence of a contract, between the party performing the work and the one that receives it; it presumes the employment relationship, and the lack of agreement is always imputable to the employer.

Chapter I GENERAL DISPOSITIONS, First Section, Principles and Fundamentals to Employment Law.  Perhaps to make it easier for the employees, the legal article defines the ones subjects to the “employment relationship”, (Article 9), identifies the employer and worker, but omits the description of the “employment relationship” which does exist when defining the contract, but with an inexplicable omission as to what an “Individual Work Contract” relates to.

In the section that relates to Contracts (articles 26 through 28) it really refers to the length of time of the individual relationships of employment as established in Chapter III, Draft of the Labor Code Law.

Chapter III Employment Contract – Second Section – Types of Employment Contracts

ARTICLE 26: Types of employment contracts used:

a) For an undetermined time, the work is to be undertaken in character permanent in nature and it doesn’t express the date of termination;

b) for a determined time, for the execution of a determined work or project, to complete potential or emergent work, for seasonal work or for the fulfillment of social work, for a trial period, to fill in for absent employees due to justified causes protected to continue for an undetermined time; they are arranged to be performed in a permanent manner and it doesn’t express a termination date.

Therefore, in a legal definition, it’s said that there is a contract when two or more parties, with contractual capacity agree under a common declaration of intent, meant to regulate their rights and obligations.

In modern law, the employment contract is not freed to the autonomy of the contractual parties, the law imposes limitations, fundamentally intended to protect the rights and obligations of the employee, or beneficiary, especially if they are under the age of 18.

There is a reciprocal relationship between both parties in an employment contract.  By adhering to the limitations, what is a right to one party it becomes an obligation to the other.  This is the legal relationship that is protected by the legal bodies.

[1]  http://www.trabajadores.cu/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Anteproyecto-Ley-Codigo-TRabajo-Cuba-2013.pdf

Translated by – LYD

16 September 2013