Malta Employment Law Updates

Further to our Summer update in relation to employment law matters (that is the four Legal Notices which were published to serve as amendments to: Annual Leave National Standard Order (LN 271/20180, Itemised Payslip Regulations (LN 274/2018), Transfer of Business (Protection of Employment) Regulations (SL.452.85) and Temporary Agency Workers Regulations (SL.452.106), and their subsequent suspension) it is worth noting that these legal notices were later amended through the publishing of two revised legal notices, which in effect place into force part of the earlier proposed changes. The amended legal notices, which were published in December are:  L.N 439 of 2018, relating to the Itemised Payslip, and L.N 440 of 2018, which amends the Annual Leave National Standard Order.

Itemised Payslip Regulations

L.N 439 of 2018 seeks to amend the earlier suspended legal notice, and which in turn now binds an employer to provide employees with an itemized payslip. The itemized payslip shall be received by the employee either before the date when wages are due, or on that date. This legal notice sets out the minimum requirements which must be included in the employees’ payslips. The minimum requirements which must be included in the relative payslips are:

• name of the employer;
• name of the employee;
• address of the employer;
• employee’s designation;
• total wages paid and the breakdown thereof;
• the period in respect of which the contents relate to;
• number of normal hours worked including those worked on Sunday or on a public holiday when this is part of the scheduled normal hours;
• number of hours entitled at overtime or special rate broken down into those in excess of normal daily or weekly hours, hours worked on a Sunday or on a public holiday;
• number of hours of annual leave availed of and any remaining balance;
• basic wages received;
• a breakdown of any bonuses, allowances or commissions received; and
• any deductions effected, including national insurance contributions, tax and others

A notable amendment to the earlier published legal notice is the cancellation of an obligation which had earlier been imposed on the employer to include the total sick leave availed of by the employee within the payslip. This is now substituted by a right provided to the employee to request up to a maximum of 4 times a year, the sick leave entitlement and the number of hours of sick leave availed of during a calendar year. The employer shall provide the employee with this information in writing within 5 working days from the date of the request.

Annual Leave National Standard Order

A. Shutdown/Forced Leave

L.N 440 of 2018, states that as of the 1^st of January 2019, an employer may only utilize up to the equivalent in hours of 12 working days from the annual leave entitlement of the employees for the purposes of any type of shutdown. An employer is furthermore bound to provide a written statement to the employees which statement shall set out the reasons to the said forced leave.

B. Vacation Leave

Annual leave entitlement shall be availed of on days agreed upon between the employer and employee. Once leave (deducted from the annual leave) has been agreed to by both the employer and the employee, such vacation leave cannot be cancelled unilaterally, but can only be cancelled if both the employer and the employee are in agreement.

C. Maternity Leave

The recent amendments to the legislation have clarified the right of an employee to continue to accrue annual leave in her favour during her maternity leave. Even more so, any balance of annual leave unavailed of by the end of the calendar year shall be automatically transferred to the next calendar year when it has not been possible for the employee to avail herself of such leave during the same year when the maternity leave commenced.

An employee on maternity leave shall also be entitled to the equivalent in hours of an additional day of annual leave of any public or national holiday falling on a day of work or on a weekly day of rest not being a Saturday or a Sunday.

D. Sick/Injury Leave

Similar to the what has been clarified vis-à-vis employees on maternity leave, annual leave shall also continue to accrue in favour of an employee during the period when s/he is on sick leave or injury leave, irrespective of whether the sick leave or the injury leave is fully paid, partially paid or unpaid.  Any balance of annual leave unavailed of by the end of the calendar year shall be automatically transferred to the next calendar year when it has not been possible for the employee to avail himself/herself of such leave during the same year when the sickness or injury leave commenced.

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