According to information provided by Internet resources, a fairly large number of employers (28%) in 2012 have plans to carry out a procedure such as indexing staff wages.
The process of depreciation of money leads to the loss of their purchasing power. As a result, if the same amount is available, fewer goods and services are purchased. Therefore, in every civilized state, this process is controlled by the established guarantees of the state in the field of wages for working citizens. Such a guarantee is the indexation of wages, which includes measures to increase its real content. It should be carried out exclusively by the employer, based on current legal norms and financial condition.
Another guarantee of indexation of salaries is provided in the form of minimum wages (minimum wage) established by the state. Employers are prohibited from setting wages that would be below this level. If at the enterprise workers with wages lower than the minimum wage are found, the head of the enterprise will have to pay a fine, and still raise the level of wages to the minimum. Monitoring compliance with the law and holding the employer accountable is carried out by employees of labor inspectorates.
Indexation of wages implies an increase for all employees of the enterprise, therefore increasing factors should be applied to their tariff rates. You should pay attention to the correct execution of this increase in wages and take it into account when calculating subsequent payments. This is precisely the difference between indexation and a simple increase in wages, in which an increase in the salary (tariff rate) of individual workers is made.
Another example of a simple increase is a selective increase in the salary of employees of individual divisions by different coefficients.
The employer is required to index. According to the opinion of Rostrud specialists and arbitrators of the Constitutional Court of Russia, wage indexation is the responsibility of the employer. This is the essence of the concept of “state guarantee”: the employer is a person acting in favor of the employee, and under no circumstances can he decide to change or cancel the guarantees declared by the state.
However, the legislators did not provide for some aspects of the mechanism for implementing this guarantee, such as the procedure and conditions for its implementation.
Labor Code on Indexing
According to the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, wage indexation is carried out in budgetary organizations in the order established by the current labor regulatory legal acts. However, at the moment, the procedure for indexing wages is not described in any legal act relating to labor law. Therefore, it is not clear what legislation the employer should be guided by in the issue of indexation.
In budgetary organizations, indexation is carried out on the basis of an appropriate order issued by the Government of the Russian Federation.
In commercial organizations - on the basis of their own regulations. In practice, as you know, the wage index exists only in collective agreements of enterprises that have joined industry agreements. In small enterprises, if this is suddenly mentioned in the contract, it is usually combined with a prerequisite that the employer has financial opportunities for its implementation.
For such cases, there is a letter from Rostrud in which the specialists of this organization recommend making changes to the documents of the organization if they do not describe the indexing procedure.