According to the
article 16.1.7 "to conduct alone an inquiry into the activities of business
entities, organisations or officials, or jointly on the basis of a proposal by
the competent State authority and their officials” of the Law on National Human
Rights Commission of Mongolia, and pursuant to a complaint lodged to the
Commission, complaints officers headed by Commissioner Ganbayar Nanzad
conducted an inquiry into activities of "Sain” Lombard in relation to the
labour rights of employees of the company concerned on 11 January 2018. In line
with article 19.2 of the Commission’s law, "Commissioners shall write and deliver
demands to relevant organisations in order to restore human rights and freedoms
and eliminate the violations if he/she has considered that business entity,
organisation or official has violated human rights and
freedoms”, Commissioner Ganbayar Nanzad has delivered the following demands in
relation to the violations of labour rights:
- Specific provisions of internal rules of the company concerned indicated a disciplinary punishment. However, any disciplinary punishment can be undertaken only in accordance with the Labour Code of Mongolia. Thus, Commissioner demanded the employers to revoke these provisions.
- The company concerned asks new employees to be involved in an apprentice training, which costs 550.000 MNT, to gain their knowledge and experiences in loan on pawn. If employees, who have participated in the training covered by the company, leave their workplace within 5 years, then they should compensate their own training cost of 550.000 MNT as stated in the internal rules of the company. However, the company does not give any professional certificates to those who have participated in the training since the training itself was not accredited by any professional organization. Therefore, these rules have also violated the Labour Code and the Commissioner demanded the employer to revoke a provision related to this training.
- The company has not kept the record of payment from their pretax income on social and health insurance books of employees in November and December 2017 yet. Furthermore, the company did not keep the record of hiring an employee in his/her social insurance book, which resulted in the violation of the Labour Code. Thus, the company shall keep the payment record on both social and health insurance books on a monthly basis.
- The inquiries revealed that the company has made requirements for employees that constitutes a forced labour according to the ILO Convention 29, to which Mongolia is a party. For example, the employer confiscates an original version of tertiary education diploma of employees when hiring them. Thus, the company should give their seven employees their own tertiary education diplomas back and should not repeat this kind of act again.
The company concerned should respond to the Commission on activities that they have taken to remove these violations of labour rights within 7 days.
