Робочий час працівника як умова трудового договору

The article clarifies the legal characteristics of working hours as a condition of an employment contract in modern conditions. The author emphasizes that the contractual legal status of the subjects of labor relations is the content of an employment contract as a set of conditions formed by the mutual expression of will of these subjects. Among the individually negotiated (mutually agreed) terms of an employment contract, the essential terms are distinguished. The author supports the need for legislative consolidation of the concept and list of essential terms of an employment contract, which is substantiated in the scientific literature. The article provides arguments that an employee’s working time as an object and legal result of mutual expression of will of the parties to an employment contract is an essential condition of an employment contract. Based on the analysis of international/European acts and constitutional principles of Ukraine, the author concludes that socially objective parameters and constitutional/legislative guarantees of working time are among the essential terms of an employment contract. It is emphasized that working time is correlated with the employee’s right to rest, safety and health protection. Therefore, it is argued that the expansion of the limits of contractual determination of the employee’s working time should be strictly regulated, and domestic legislative discretion should be limited by the relevant supranational (international) acts. After all, a certain moment/period of labor relations, designated as the employee’s working time, is characterized by the legal bond of subordination of the employee to the employer in the performance of duties that form his/her labor function. The author provides examples of working time, its duration, regime and restrictions in the Labor Code of Ukraine in the context of ensuring an employee’s right to rest as an essential condition of an employment contract: employment contracts for remote work, with unlimited working hours, under a simplified regime of labor relations regulation. From the perspective of individual contractual regulation of working time, the author examines the issue of an employee’s right to be disconnected. The article analyzes the issues of working time regulation in the context of digitalization of labor processes.