Lithuania’s State Labour Inspectorate warns that an employee’s request to quit a job is lawful only if it reflects the worker’s genuine and free will, not pressure, deception or coercion by an employer.

In a statement to the media, the inspectorate said it continues to see cases in which employees are summoned urgently to workplaces and asked to sign documents described as correcting “mistakes”, only to later discover they had signed a request to resign voluntarily. In some instances, workers say they did not fully understand what they were signing until after their employment had already ended.

Such situations are particularly sensitive when employees are only a few years away from retirement, the inspectorate said.

Pressure or deception is not a lawful dismissal

“An employer has no right to force an employee to write a request to leave a job voluntarily or to obtain a signature through deception,” said Šarūnas Orlavičius, chancellor of the State Labour Inspectorate. “A termination of an employment contract is lawful only when it reflects the employee’s true will and is based on a free decision.”

According to Orlavičius, pressure, intimidation, rushing employees to sign documents or presenting paperwork under misleading circumstances are illegal actions. If it is established that a worker was forced to resign or misled into signing, the dismissal may be declared unlawful.

Read more: LRT.LT