Cleopatra Draghici, Senior Associate at Muşat & Asociaţii, lectured on the advantages and disadvantages of the new provisions of the Emergency Ordinance no. 65/2005. The seminar was organized by Bilant Magazine and took place on February 21st, 2006 in Bucharest, at the Muşat & Asociaţii headquarters.
Mr. Constantin Rudnitchi, chief editor at Bilant magazine was the host of the seminar and Mr. Mihai Seitan, State Secretary and President of CNPAS, held another speech.
Cleopatra Draghici underlined that The Emergency Ordinance no. 65/2005 was made in accordance with the stipulations of the Directive no. 98/95/CE regarding the correlation of the member states’ legislation on collective dismissals.
She analyzed the voluntary withdrawal alternative to the collective dismissal procedure and she outlined the advantages and disadvantages of both procedures. The voluntary withdrawal programs have procedural advantages; they are simpler and quicker. This way, the employers can avoid the strict procedures necessary in collective dismissal procedures and they can hire immediately people on the same jobs. Also, that they can avoid possible disputes in court and the image deficit caused by collective dismissals.
As a downside, the employers cannot establish the number of employees included in voluntary withdrawal programs, therefore they cannot establish the amount of compensatory payments for the employees. Also, they have to pay income taxes and other contributions for the compensatory payments, in comparison to collective dismissal programs where compensatory payments are excluded from income taxes.