How to get paid for downtime not caused by the employee

When this guide applies

Use this guide when an em­ploy­er has stopped all or part of the work, the em­ploy­ee did not cause the stop­page, and payment is missing or unclear. For a pro­duc­tion site, hotel, restau­rant, or mu­nic­i­pal em­ploy­er in Lviv or a com­mu­ni­ty in the region, es­tab­lish which work became im­pos­si­ble, who issued the in­struc­tion, and whether the em­ploy­ee re­mained ready to perform their duties.

Do not begin with arith­metic if the doc­u­ments de­scribe the event as sus­pen­sion of an em­ploy­ment con­tract, unpaid leave, absence, or down­time caused by the em­ploy­ee. These are not syn­onyms. Sep­a­rate­ly iden­ti­fy a haz­ardous work­place sit­u­a­tion not caused by the em­ploy­ee: Article 113 of the Labour Code pro­vides for average earn­ings in that case, so the 2/3 tariff cal­cu­la­tor does not apply.

Applicable rule and procedure

Under Ar­ti­cles 34 and 113 of the Labour Code, or­di­nary down­time not caused by an em­ploy­ee must be paid at no less than two-thirds of the tariff rate for the em­ploy­ee’s grade or salary. An hourly or daily cal­cu­la­tion re­quires a con­firmed rate and in­cludes only hours or days sched­uled as working time. A col­lec­tive agree­ment, pay policy, em­ploy­ment agree­ment, or order may provide a higher guar­an­tee.

An em­ploy­ee must notify the em­ploy­er when down­time begins, except where a struc­tur­al unit or the entire busi­ness is idle. In prac­tice, record the date, reason, readi­ness to work, and re­cip­i­ent of the notice. An act, order, and time sheet form a strong ev­i­den­tiary chain, but their absence should not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly be treated as a uni­ver­sal formal bar to a claim.

As a general rule, wages are paid within the time limits in Article 115 of the Labour Code. During martial law, Article 10 of Law No. 2136-IX allows a proven in­abil­i­ty to pay on time due to hos­til­i­ties to be as­sessed, but it does not cancel the debt. Sus­pen­sion under Article 13 of that Law is a sep­a­rate regime and, under the current rules, gen­er­al­ly does not require the em­ploy­er to accrue wages for the period of a lawful sus­pen­sion.

Steps to take

1. Ask in writing which arrange­ment applies. Ask whether the event was for­mal­ly clas­si­fied as down­time, why, which unit it af­fect­ed, and for what period. If a shift at a pro­duc­tion site or venue in Lviv Oblast was can­celled orally, send the request to the local manager and the em­ploy­ing legal entity.

2. Check your work sched­ule. Mark only the hours or days that were sched­uled as work. Week­ends and other non-working time within a cal­en­dar period are not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly in­clud­ed in the cal­cu­la­tion.

3. Obtain a con­firmed rate. Do not enter a monthly salary into an hourly formula. Ask for the tariff scale or payroll cal­cu­la­tion of the hourly or daily rate, in­clud­ing the time norm used.

4. Cal­cu­late the amount due and the dif­fer­ence. Use the down­time pay cal­cu­la­tor. It applies exactly 2/3 for the statu­to­ry arrange­ment and a higher per­cent­age only when sup­port­ed by a doc­u­ment. Deduct only ac­cru­als for the same down­time from the gross amount due.

5. Submit a claim with a table. State the period, rate unit, sched­uled work units, payment rule, amount due, amount already accrued, and dif­fer­ence. Attach copies of records and keep proof of de­liv­ery. If payment is still missing, sep­a­rate­ly check the time limit for filing a salary claim in court.

What to check before filing

The em­ploy­er’s name and legal-entity code in the claim should match your em­ploy­ment records. A re­gion­al unit or office may handle com­mu­ni­ca­tions but may not itself be the debtor. A sep­a­rate venue, work­shop, or mu­nic­i­pal unit may keep the time sheet but may not itself be the debtor. If an ad­min­is­tra­tion in another com­mu­ni­ty issued the order and a Lviv site kept the time sheet, gather both sets of records and explain how they relate.

Make sure the rate and quan­ti­ty use match­ing units: mul­ti­ply an hourly rate by hours and a daily rate by days. Do not replace the frac­tion 2/3 with re­peat­ed round­ing when cal­cu­lat­ing the statu­to­ry minimum. If the em­ploy­er used a higher per­cent­age, attach the doc­u­ment that sets it for your po­si­tion and period.

Compare gross with gross. A bank deposit after tax cannot be di­rect­ly sub­tract­ed from an accrual before tax. For broader wage arrears, see the guide to re­cov­er­ing unpaid wages; if the em­ploy­er ended the em­ploy­ment re­la­tion­ship, sep­a­rate­ly check the law­ful­ness of the order.

When to consult a lawyer

Legal review is ap­pro­pri­ate if the em­ploy­er retroac­tive­ly labels the period unpaid leave, em­ploy­ee fault, or sus­pen­sion; refuses to provide the time sheet or rate cal­cu­la­tion; cites a haz­ardous sit­u­a­tion but pays only 2/3; or con­flates down­time with absence from work. If you were dis­missed after a dispute about down­time, do not delay re­view­ing how to chal­lenge un­law­ful dis­missal, since that claim has sep­a­rate time limits and ev­i­dence re­quire­ments.

For a matter in Lviv or the region, a lawyer can compare the site sched­ule with orders from the legal entity, check the legal clas­si­fi­ca­tion of the event, rate, and month-by-month cal­cu­la­tion, and prepare a claim without con­flat­ing dis­tinct legal regimes. The prac­ti­cal result is a table of con­firmed inputs, source doc­u­ments for each line, and a clear remedy.