Lawyer warned companies of liability for refusal to index wages

Indexation of wages is an obligation of all employers without exception, established by Article 134 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, Alexander Yuzhalin, head of legal practice at SuperJob, told Izvestia on February 17. At the same time, the lack of indexation may be the basis for bringing the employer to responsibility under Part 1 of Article 5.27 of the Code of Administrative Offenses.

If such a violation is detected, the inspection body may oblige the employer to establish an indexation procedure and carry out indexation in accordance with the established procedure, the lawyer emphasized.

According to the article, employers are divided into two groups: public organizations (state bodies, local self-government bodies, state and municipal institutions) and all others (i.e. non-state and, including commercial organizations).

For the first group, the indexation procedure should be determined by a separate regulatory act that will apply to a particular organization. This may be an order or decree on indexation of the state body, under the jurisdiction or subordination of which the organization is located, the expert explained.

At the same time, he said, there are no such separate regulatory legal acts for the commercial sector.

"The Labor Code of the Russian Federation allows these employers to independently decide how to carry out indexation in their company. But it is still necessary to carry out such indexation, and it should be associated with an increase in the level of the real content of wages due to the growth of consumer prices for goods and services," Yuzhalin specified.

The indexation itself can look different, the employer himself decides in what form to carry it out.

"Often employers close the issue of indexation at the expense of bonuses, which is also not contrary to the requirements of the law, if such an indexation procedure is fixed in the organization. <...> By increasing employees' salaries or paying bonuses, the employer can prove that it fulfills the requirements established by Article 134 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation," the lawyer pointed out.

However, in his opinion, in order to avoid risks, it is better not just to increase salaries and pay bonuses, but also to prescribe the procedure for such indexation, which can then be referred to. Otherwise, the payment of bonuses or salary increases may be recognized as unrelated to the procedure for indexation of wages in the organization.

"In order to carry out indexation in a commercial organization, it is necessary to develop a separate local normative act or to include indexation conditions in an existing local act (for example, in the Regulation on Remuneration). The law does not say what should be specified in this local act, but, based on the tasks to be solved by the document, it should determine the periodicity of indexation. Taking into account the purpose of indexation (ensuring an increase in the level of real content of wages in connection with the growth of consumer prices for goods and services), it is recommended to index wages annually," the expert said.

It is also worth determining the term of indexation and the procedure for its implementation.

"It is necessary to determine the mechanism of indexation and establish the amount of indexation (or specify how and by what it is determined). There may be different options here: establishing a percentage of salary, increasing the amount of wages in a fixed amount, and so on. The employer has the right to choose the most convenient way and describe it in a local act or collective bargaining agreement," - said Yuzhalin.

Earlier, on February 12, it was reported that this month 86% of surveyed employers faced staff shortages. This is stated in the results of the study of the Russian School of Management. Businesses are looking for different ways to retain employees and attract new workers. Among them, 58% of companies have planned to increase salaries in 2025.