The employer and (or) the employer's representatives authorized by him in the established manner, who have delayed the payment of wages to employees and other violations of wages, are liable in accordance with this Code and other federal laws.
In case of delay in payment of wages for a period of more than 15 days, the employee has the right, by notifying the employer in writing, to suspend work for the entire period until the delayed amount is paid. Suspension of work is not allowed:
during periods of martial law, a state of emergency or special measures in accordance with the legislation on a state of emergency;
in the bodies and organizations of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, other military, paramilitary and other formations and organizations dealing with issues of ensuring the country's defense and state security, emergency rescue, search and rescue, fire-fighting work, work to prevent or eliminate natural disasters and emergency situations, in law enforcement agencies;
civil servants;
in organizations that directly service particularly dangerous types of production and equipment;
employees whose job responsibilities include performing work directly related to ensuring the life of the population (energy supply, heating and heat supply, water supply, gas supply, communications, ambulance and emergency medical care stations).
During the period of suspension of work, the employee has the right to be absent from the workplace during his working hours.
During the period of suspension of work, the employee retains his average earnings.
An employee who was absent from the workplace during his working hours during the period of suspension of work is obliged to return to work no later than the next working day after receiving written notification from the employer of his readiness to pay the delayed wages on the day the employee returns to work.
Article 141
Article 142
Article 143
Algorithm for further actions
After writing and delivering the notice, the employee may not attend the workplace. It is in the employer’s interests to repay the debt as quickly as possible. Therefore, after the employer receives the application and finds funds to pay off the wage debt, he is obliged to notify the employee in writing.
The letter must indicate that the employer is ready to pay the debt on the day the employee returns to work . After receiving the letter, the employee must go to his workplace and continue his work.
Are you experiencing delays in wages?
There are many authorities where an employee can complain in case of non-receipt of wages. The main ones are the labor inspectorate, the court and the prosecutor's office. Contacting these authorities will help restore justice and punish the unscrupulous employer.
Do you have a question about suspension of work due to non-payment of wages?
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Non-payment of income and consequences in this regard
If workers are not paid wages for a long time, they have to go into debt and take out loans in order to simply live on something and go to work. As a result, in addition to the main borrowed funds, you often have to pay interest to banks and microfinance organizations, refuse lucrative offers to purchase something, and save. This is only a small part of the troubles that people experience when they do not receive their salaries on time.
The law provides for penalties for employers for non-payment of wages; it will depend on the length of the delay, the amount of debt, as well as the reasons why payment was not received on time. Based on this, the employer may face :
- Financial responsibility. That is, management will be obliged to pay not only the debt for work, but also compensation for employees (the procedure for its calculation is presented in Article 236 of the Labor Code);
- Administrative - in the form of a fine (for repeated violations up to 150,000 rubles);
- Criminal - up to 5 years in prison.
But workers need to take into account the fact that the employer’s liability occurs only if an inspection has been carried out at the enterprise and the guilt of the management has been proven. And to initiate an inspection, a reason is needed - a statement from employees . Therefore, you should not tolerate management’s negligence; you need to contact the competent authorities and protect your rights.
Suspension of work activities
According to statistics, every 5 working citizen has encountered a violation of his labor rights. The most common of them is delay or non-payment of wages. Nobody wants to work “for free,” but few know that there is a law according to which an employee has the right not to attend the workplace if his salary is delayed by more than 15 days (Article 142 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation).
In order not to officially attend the workplace during the period of delay in payment, the employee must notify management about this. This is best done in writing in the form of a notice or notice. In this case, you need to make sure that the letter reaches your superiors. To do this, it should be submitted through the reception secretary with the assignment of an incoming number, or by mail with acknowledgment of delivery.
If notification of suspension of work due to non-payment of wages is not received, management may regard the employee’s absence from work as absenteeism and reprimand him or even fire him.
It should be noted that in some situations suspension of work is not possible. Namely :
- If wages are delayed during an emergency or declared martial law;
- If the employee works in the civil service or in a hazardous industry;
- If the worker’s activities are related to medicine or housing and communal services.
In these cases, the employee is obliged to attend his workplace, even despite the delay in payment.
We draw up a letter
There is no specific established form for writing a notice of suspension of work; it is written according to the general rules of business correspondence, namely :
- When writing, it is prohibited to use obscene expressions;
- The notification must exclude semantic, spelling and other errors;
- The essence of the notification should be stated briefly and to the point, without the use of complex and emotionally charged speech patterns.
To simplify the process of writing an application, you can use a ready-made template.
Sample
The notice of suspension of work consists of several parts :
- Document header.
- Name.
- Main part.
- Signature and date.
In the header of the document you should indicate the name of the organization, full name of the head, full name and position of the applicant.
As for the name of the document, it can be called: statement, notification or notice.
In the main part , you need to write down the reason for refusing to go to work (due to delays in payment), the deadlines within which wages must be paid under the contract, and the deadlines for late payments. When writing the main part, you can use links to articles of the law, namely Part 2 of Article 142 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation.
At the end of the notification the date of writing and the signature of the applicant are indicated.
Sample application for non-payment of wages
We provide a sample of how to fill it out for an application to an employer about non-payment of wages.
Good afternoon At our factory there is a 3 month delay in wages. I wrote a letter of absence from work due to the delay, but management refuses to sign it. What to do?
I want to send a letter via a courier service, but the secretary receives all the documents from the courier service and signs them. Will her signature be sufficient to confirm the document has been submitted to the court?
There are many ways to deliver an application, use any, or even better, several at once.
You submit your application in the following ways (your choice):
- through the secretariat, human resources (personnel) department of the organization, so that on the second copy you are given an incoming number and a mark from an official about the acceptance of this application;
— by registered mail with registered receipt and a list of the contents;
