Did only a few companies that received state support not keep their word to the state? Experts doubt that Business

During the quarantine, the government extended a hand by offering various measures of support to companies affected by the pandemic. However, to avoid abuse, several fuses were inserted.

One of the most popular measures that has helped affected businesses the most has been subsidies to workers’ wages during downtime. However, in exchange for the subsidy, the government forced employers to retain workers for at least 3 months after the subsidy was paid.

The sanction for companies that have not complied with this instruction is the prohibition of participating in supported employment measures, job creation subsidies (adaptation) and execution of local employment initiative projects for one year.

Milda Jankauskienė, representative of the Employment Service (UT) 15 minutes reported that five companies had not complied with this obligation to keep their jobs, the main reasons being bankruptcy or suspension of the company by decision of the shareholders.

The fired companies represent various sectors: commerce, manufacturing, computer programming, consulting, but UT does not reveal their names for data protection reasons.

By the way, UT reports that subsidy payments were suspended for only two companies.

According to the government, a total of $ 150.17 million has been paid in downtime allowances so far. 24 thousand euros were used for this measure. companies.

The labor inspection found only a few violations

When subsidies are paid to companies for downtime, another protection is provided: a company whose employees are caught working during downtime must repay state subsidies for those employees within two months.

M. Jankauskienė reported that the State Labor Inspectorate (VDI) has so far only identified three offenders: companies in Panevėžys and Kaunas, whose employees worked during downtime.

According to UT, two companies, UAB WINART and UAB Alsteka, which have been paid downtime grants, must repay them due to violations identified by the SLI.

These companies have not yet returned the funds received for the salaries of employees who are in downtime, the repayment term is being adjusted with them. As for the third company, the situation is currently adjusting ”, reported M. Jankauskienė.

However, VDI is communication advisor to Jurgita Kažukauskaitė-Sarnickienė 15 minutes He said that in total, the SLI has so far submitted 9 reports to the Employment Service on violations during downtime.

M. Jankauskienė explained that the UT and VDI data do not match because not all employers who registered employees for downtime submitted subsidy applications.

“In each case, if such information is received from the SLI, the companies will be obliged to return the funds”, emphasized M. Jankauskienė.

During the quarantine period in the country, the SLI carried out 245 scheduled and unscheduled inspections and drafted 46 requests to eliminate these violations and 43 complaints of administrative misconduct for the violations detected.

However, J.Kažukauskaitė-Sarnickienė emphasized that during the quarantine the Inspection inspected several companies, but these were general inspections, during which attention was paid to the problems of announcing downtime.

As of July 15, SLI has been conducting an unscheduled inspection of the legality of downtime.

Union leader: sounds weird

However, this number raises questions, as the Financial Crimes Investigation Service (FNTT), which also carried out inspections, announced in a couple of weeks, from April 30 to May 7, that it had inspected a couple of dozens of companies in Lithuania and had found infringements in eight companies.

This information was sent by the FNTT to the SLI for its evaluation for the initiation of an administrative process of absence, and to the Employment Service for the payment of the losses after the announcement of the subsidies.

The small number of offenders surprised Inga Ruginienė, president of the Lithuanian Trade Union Confederation.

“It sounds weird because there aren’t many,” he said. 15 minutes I.Ruginienė was shocked.

In the first weeks of quarantine, union phones even change the number of calls from employees they want to consult. Trade unionists talked to workers from morning to night, even on weekends. I.Ruginienė claimed that a large part – up to 50 percent. the investigations related to various irregularities, including downtime.

“People, for example, asked if it was normal to go to work during downtime. If such specific questions are asked, it turns out that some interviews with the employee have been carried out in the workplace. Still, a person will not call herself to a union to share her thoughts; if you call or write then you are facing a problem. People do not call us to be happy ”, emphasized I.Ruginienė.

Anyway, a person will not call himself to a union to share his thoughts, that is, he faces a problem. People don’t call us to be happy, II Ruginienė emphasized.

Unions received a second boom in consultations mid-quarantine, when workers asked who had to pay them during downtime and asked whether their employers had received subsidies.

“When the investigation began, it became clear that the employees’ money was being delayed: the employer was late in paying for the downtime and indicated as a reason that they had not yet received the subsidy,” recalled I.Ruginienė.

The president of the trade union confederation considered that the low number of identified offenders was due to a series of reasons, both to the low number of inspections carried out and to the reluctance of the affected workers themselves to report the infractions.

“VDI responds to real complaints: if there is no signal, they do their own scheduled inspections, but even if they were more frequent, the inspection capacity is not enough to control everyone.

The employees were unwilling to complain; they wrote to us, often anonymously, but there was no way to immediately write to the Labor Inspectorate, although we encouraged them to do so, said I.Ruginienė.

Meanwhile, the employees were unwilling to complain; they wrote to us, often anonymously, but there was no way to immediately write to the SLI, although we encouraged them to do so, ”said I. Ruginienė.

Post-quarantine inspections intensified

Incidentally, I.Ruginienė realizes that the inspections due to downtime intensified long after the quarantine. Some companies that did not recover from the pandemic even sent workers into periods of inactivity after the end of the quarantine.

Starting July 15. The SLI conducted 131 unscheduled inspections of the legality of downtime and identified violations at eleven companies in the manufacturing, catering, transportation, medical and retail sectors.

4 administrative infraction protocols and 7 requirements to eliminate infractions were developed. Most of the irregularities are related to the declaration of partial inactivity time, for example, not indicating the start and end times of employees who have been declared part-time, not indicating the number of hours of reduced work, etc.

During the inspections, other infractions were also recorded (for example, regarding the payment of wages, elaboration of working hours). The inspections of some companies have not yet been completed.

VDI plans to conduct unscheduled inspections before September 14.