Termination of an employment contract at the initiative of an employee in Russian practice: historical and legal view

Abstract

The article in a retrospective aspect examines the problem of legal regulation of termination of an employment contract at the initiative of an employee. The influence of historical experience on modern legislation and the practice of applying dismissal of their own free will is shown, traditions and innovations in this matter are revealed. It is noted that in the process of its development, the legislative provisions that determined the conditions and procedure for dismissal at the initiative of the employee did not always ensure the necessary balance of interests of the parties to labor relations and the state. They were more aimed at the implementation of the production, and not the socio-protective function of labor law. The norms that determined the conditions and procedure for terminating the contract at the initiative of the employee for the first time began to be enshrined in the acts of factory legislation of the imperial period, but at that time they had not yet received proper detail. In the Soviet era, the position of the legislator regarding the possibility of terminating an employment contract at the initiative of an employee was not consistent, ranging from recognition of dismissal to his complete rejection. The most fruitful influence on improving the legal regulation of termination of an employment contract at the initiative of an employee was the Soviet legal practice of the period of validity of the Foundations of Labor Legislation of 1970 and the KZoT of 1971. Legal experience, first of all, of this period formed the basis of the norms on dismissal of their own free will in the current Labor Code of the Russian Federation. At the same time, the modern legislator reasonably abandoned, perhaps, the main rudiment of the previous regulation - limiting the possibility of termination at the initiative of an employee of a fixed-term employment contract.