Month: July 2023

The application can be submitted either during an appointment in an office, or by sending the application by registered post, confirming that the letter was sent before midnight. This will initiate the proceedings for the foreigner’s residence permit in Poland, which will give them basis for legal work. It should be noted, however, that the office will request foreigners to complete the application within seven days from receiving the request. If someone goes on holiday during that time and does not respond to the office’s request within the deadline, they will be treated as if they did not submit the application at all. – Karolina Schiffter comments for Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

Article: here.

The current legislation contains many detailed regulations, e.g. on drivers’ working hours, but they do not provide sufficient protection from fatigue in this profession in case drivers take on additional work. At the same time, the regulations in Labour Code limit the possibility of restricting employees from taking up additional employment. – Karolina Kanclerz comments for Rzeczpospolita.

Article in English is available here.

A list of support programmes for foreigners published today on the website of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister (link in Polish: here) makes it so that foreigners who have registered a business activity in Poland on the basis of a Poland Business Harbor visa, are authorized to continue this business activity (i.a. work as contractors on the basis of a B2B contract) even after expiry of the visa.

This includes visas whose validity periods were extended until July 31, 2023 under the regulations in force during the period of the covid-19 epidemic threat.

One prerequisite for maintaining the right to conduct business activity after expiry of the Poland Business Harbor visa is to submit an appropriate application for residence permit before visa expiry (e.g. application for a residence permit for the purpose of conducting business activity).

Please note – submitting an application for a residence permit before expiry of Poland Business Harbor visa will not extend a non-Polish national’s right to perform work on a legal basis different than a B2B contract.

Social insurance disputes will undergo a major shake-up if the new deregulation bill goes through. According to the bill, when the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) questions whether or not a contract was actually performed, it must refer the case to court. Currently, contract classification is at the discretion of ZUS, which can decide that the contract was a sham and, therefore, refuse to pay social benefits to the insured person. Then, it is the insured person who must appeal the ZUS’s decision and prove that the contract was real.

I believe that, if the changes go through, there would be fewer cases where ZUS questions the existence of contracts which are the basis for social insurance and, therefore, ZUS’s obligation to pay social security benefits to the insured person. It is fairly easy to make such a decision, regardless of whether it concerns an individual or even whole groups of employees working for one company, but it takes time and effort to file individual suits to establish the (in)existence of an employment relationship and to compile documents and arguments to prove the contract was a sham. The change proposed in the Deregulation Act would restore the balance between the insured persons and ZUS. – Łukasz Chruściel comments for the Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

Article here.

The introduction of Article 26(1) to the Labour Code has caused quite a stir on the part of both employees and employers. This is not surprising as the provision explicitly provides for a prohibition on restricting employees from taking on additional employment, regardless of if this would involve a contract of employment or another type of agreement. Could employees who take on extra duties exploit the information and experience they have gained with competitors, and will the additional after-hours duties affect the quality and timeliness of work? How to prevent this? – Marcin Szlasa-Rokicki and Anna Kencel comment for IT-Leaders.

Article in Polish is available here.

While the ESG factors have been talked about for several years now, the conversation around them has recently picked up. Until now, the ESG reporting requirement only applied to a narrow group of entities, however the situation changed on 16 December 2022, when the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) was published in the Official Journal of the EU. – Paweł Sych and Michalina Lewandowska-Alama comment for HR na Szpilkach magazine.

Article in Polish avialible here.

The regulation does not remove all the obstacles that stop foreigners from coming to Poland. If, after the changes come into force, the waiting time for a visa is shortened, this may encourage greater demand for foreign workers, in particular from Asian or African countries. At the same time, the proposed regulation does not provide for the processing of applications of family members of foreign workers by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (in the case of countries other than Ukraine and Belarus). – Karolina Schiffter comments for Gazeta Wyborcza.

Article: here.

The Labour Code contains an extensive and comprehensive set of regulations regarding the rights of employees who are parents and the employer’s obligations arising form them. It not only provides for specific leaves and time off from work to care for a newborn child, but also guarantees protection against dismissal during pregnancy and while the parents are using their rights. – Karolina Schiffter, Katarzyna Witkowska-Pertkiewicz, Patryk Kozieł, Kinga Ciosk, Kinga Rozbicka, and Anna Kencel discussed the new and existing regulations in an article for Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

Article: here.

The financial support for periods of economic standstill is sometimes problematic on Labour Offices’ inspections. Many of these cases may end up in court. Currently, the offices are of the opinion that the received financial support should be proportionally reduced for each day during which the employee was not on standby. This applies not only to days when they performed work during the standstill but also to holidays or sick leaves. According to the offices, in such situations, employers should return a significant part of the received money. – Paweł Sych comments for Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

Article: here.