Respect for the labor rights of civil servants – under control of the Ethics Council

The Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan for Civil Service Affairs and its territorial divisions pay special attention to the observance of labor rights of civil servants. Work on eliminating the facts of illegal overtime work in the state bodies, delays of state employees at the workplace after the end of the working day is one of the priority activities of the Department of the Agency for Civil Service Affairs of the North Kazakhstan Region. On March 12, 2020, the Ethics Council in the North Kazakhstan Region at a meeting considered the results of the Department’s work to identify overtime, delays of civil servants at the workplace after the end of the working day In 2019, representatives of public organizations, members of the Ethics Council carried out 39 preventive measures to comply with the work schedule, with visits to government bodies. The measures taken allowed to reduce the number of cases of illegal overtime work of civil servants of the North Kazakhstan region in 2019. 

As additional measures to comply with the labor rights of public servants in the region, the introduction of a “flexible work schedule” is considering with the government bodies. Positive feedback already exists, 5 state bodies supported the introduction of a “flexible work schedule”, where, at the request of employees, an appropriate work schedule was approved. On the recommendation of the Department, in order to exclude the facts of unlawful illegal overtime work, the job descriptions of the heads of structural units (departments) of state bodies were supplemented with the norm on liability for allowing illegal overtime work by state employees who are subordinate to these heads of units.  Systematic work in this direction is also carried out with the participation of public organizations and members of the Ethics Council, that monitor the observance of the work schedule with visits to state bodies after the end of the working day.