Parliament is currently analysing the Report on Activities of the State Labour Inspectorate for 2024. The document contains the latest data on detected and adjudicated misdemeanours and crimes against employee rights. The report also presents trends in the prosecution of perpetrators of acts violating labour rights, in particular information on the effectiveness of inspectors' work and the condition of criminal proceedings in Poland.

Growing Number of Violations

The report shows that the number of misdemeanours detected by inspectors is steadily increasing. In 2024, it reached a record high of nearly 54,000 cases. The inspection efficiency of inspectors was 39%. At the same time, in 2024 labour inspectors issued more than 17,800 criminal fines (an increase of 3.5%) and applied about 8,500 measures of educational impact (an increase of 6.5%).

Court cases (following inspector requests for punishment) involved misdemeanours charged against some 900 people. It should be noted that, unlike crimes, each violation of the law is treated by the inspector as a separate misdemeanour. For example, failure to pay an employee's salary for a quarter qualifies as three offences, rather than one extended act.

The State Labour Inspectorate also states which acts are prosecuted as misdemeanours. As in previous years, these were activities involving:

• failure to observe health and safety regulations (47.5%)
• failure to pay wages on time or to make unjustified understatements or deductions of wages (16.9%)
• violation of the Law on Promotion of Employment and Labour Market Institutions (9.3%)

Another trend shows that fewer request for punishment were submitted to courts, despite an increase in the number of detected offences. In 2024, there were 1,019 requests, down 4% compared to 2023. At the same time, the number of those convicted and fined, reprimanded, and acquitted declined in 2024, indicating lower efficiency of courts.

The most interesting information concerns the value of fines imposed by inspectors. It was 10 times higher than that of fines imposed by courts (PLN 23.3 million imposed through criminal fines vs. PLN 2.4 million imposed by courts). The average value of fines imposed by inspectors was approximately PLN 1,300, whereas that imposed by courts was PLN 2,900.

Prosecution of Crimes – Model Ineffectiveness

Data on crime detection and prosecution are also interesting. In 2024, the State Labour Inspectorate filed slightly more notices of suspected crimes than in 2023, but at the same time there was a significant increase (by 130%) in the number of investigations initiated. There was a noticeable increase in the number of cases in which prosecutors refused to initiate or discontinued proceedings (up 61%). The number of indictments sent to courts remained at a similar level (80 cases).

There were 20 convictions in courts (the same number as in 2023). These cases did not involve imprisonment, but mainly fines, the average amount of which averaged around PLN 4,000.

The above figures need to be supplemented. Indeed, it is significant that 51.3% of notices of suspicted crimes concerned the thwarting or obstruction of inspectors in the performance of their duties. Cases in the prosecutors' offices mostly concerned acts directed against labour inspection activities, not crimes violating the rights of employees. Only about 25% of the notifications, as in 2023, concerned crimes strictly related to violations of employees rights (Articles 218-220 of the Penal Code).

Conclusions: What Model of Prosecution?

The report shows that labour inspectors are finding a growing number of violations of labour rights every year. It is also apparent that inspectors prefer to conclude proceedings without triggering the judicial route (filing a request for punishment). Finally, it is undeniable that prosecutors' offices and courts are not very effective in cases where the misdemeanour or crime was initially detected by labour inspectors.

The reasons for this inefficiency cannot solely be attributed to organisational factors, including workload. In practice, the problem is the boundary between crimes and misdemeanours in this type of case. A good example is the crime under Article 218 § 1a of the Penal Code, where it must be demonstrated for a conviction that the violation of labour rights was of a "persistent" or "malicious" nature. With a misdemeanour, on the other hand, it suffices to show that the employer once failed to pay a salary. Another example is the offence under Article 225 of the Penal Code, where a common rationale for refusing to initiate or discontinuing proceedings is the assumption that the employer in question was exercising their rights, rather than intending to prevent or obstruct the work of inspectors. Finally, criminal cases often show that the filing of a notice of suspected crimes was aimed at forcing the employer to implement inspection recommendations or enforce organisational changes.

All of the above circumstances, particularly the number of fines issued and imposed by inspectors, lead us to believe that the prosecution of labour rights violations should be carried out, as a rule, through the misdemeanour route. The involvement of the prosecutor's office should be expedient and appropriate only in exceptional situations. It should apply to particularly serious cases, including fatal occupational accidents or health injuries prosecuted by public prosecution, or cases in which the violation of labour rights is related to the activities of organised crime groups, fraud, or human trafficking.

Dr. Artur Pietryka