Employer's legal capasity and capability of public association in Russia

This paper presents the first study on an employer's legal capacity and capability of voluntary associations in of the Russian labour law science. The authors analyse the features of the origin, the contents and termination of such legal capacity and capability. The authors propose new regulations on voluntary associations as employers for the Labour Code of the Russian Federation. The criteria of an employer's legal capacity and capability are the possibility to define the structure and staffing pattern in the articles of association, the presence of a separate fund for salaries and the ability of a voluntary association to have legal liability and to be a party in the legal proceeding. So, the legal capacity and capability of voluntary associations start only after the setting of the leading and internal audit bodies of a voluntary association, an appropriate registration and the presence of the criteria, which are specified above, in the articles of association. It is a feature of almost all the voluntary associations that their funds are based on member contributions and donations which are raised exclusively for specific purposes of certain programs. Neither of these sources of funding can be used as funds for salaries for the employees of a voluntary association, as these sources are occasional. Therefore, a specific type of an employment contract can be set out in the Labour Code of the Russian Federation for financing of the corresponding activity.