Ukraine, as the sole post-Soviet country still reliant on the Labour Code of 1971 to govern labour relations, faces a critical need for an update. Despite numerous amendments over its half-century lifespan, this regulatory act no longer aligns with the current state of social and labour relations. The urgency to codify labour legislation to meet European Union standards is paramount, underscoring the significance of this endeavour.

Since the end of the last century, all attempts to adopt a new Labour Code of Ukraine have never been completed. None of the drafts of the Code submitted to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine managed to overcome the so-called “second reading” stage, remaining somewhere on the archival shelves of the Parliament. Therefore, the emergence of the next draft Labour Code gives us hope that our country will finally receive a modern codified act that will not be ashamed to join the system of legislation of the united Europe.

However, the very first impressions from reading the draft of this code submitted to the Parliament were not encouraging. Unfortunately, the conceptual component of the draft looks relatively weak. Serious concerns are raised about the structure of the code, the object of its regulation, the principles (foundations) on which such regulation will be based, the scope of its validity, etc. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to review some conceptual approaches to defining the most important concepts and terms of labour law and to make suggestions and recommendations to the drafters and the submitting entity to improve its regulatory content. It is proposed, in particular, to revise some of the wording of such legal concepts as labour relations, employment contracts, a form of employment contracts, etc., that are crucial for labour law.

The author concludes that a promising option in the context of the globalization of the labour market is the adoption of a codified act to regulate only individual labour relations. Special legislative acts should regulate collective relations and relations that depend on labour relations.

Bibliography

Authored books 1. Prokopenko V, Trudove pravo Ukrainy: Pidruchnyk (Konsum 1998).

Dictionaries 2. Busel V (uklad i holov red), Velykyi tlumachnyi slovnyk suchasnoi ukrainskoi movy (Perun 2004).

3. Karavanskyi S, Rosiisko-ukrainskyi slovnyk skladnoi leksyky (Bak 2006).

 4. Novyi tlumachnyi slovnyk ukrainskoi movy u chotyrokh tomakh: U 4 t. Tom 4: ROB-Ia (V Yaremenko, O Slipushko uklad, Akonit 1999).