articles - Labour and employment law

Due to the COVID–19 pandemic, Poland adopted regulations temporarily restricting entry to Poland of non-Polish citizens.

On 8 March 2020, the Law on special arrangements for the prevention and combating of COVID-19, other infectious diseases and crisis situations caused by them (Crisis Act) took effect. It introduced a number of provisions setting rules and procedures for preventing and combating infection and spread of the COVID-19 infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus as well as tasks of public administrations in this regard.

A variety of circumstances may cause a workplace accident. It is important to properly determine the cause of an accident, because only an event that had an external cause may be deemed a work accident. An external cause of an accident has a very broad definition. It may be the operation of a workplace machine or tool, or the behaviour of another person, or of the injured person himself. A workplace accident may even be caused by the employee tripping, or his unfortunate reflex action that led to a fall and the injury.

A draft amendment to the law on the recognition of professional qualifications acquired in the EU Member States has just been submitted to public consultation. The draft implements the EU directive on this subject (2018/958) into the Polish legal system. This directive in turn complements Directive 2005/36/EC on the recognition of professional qualifications. The deadline for implementation falls on 30th July 2020. The changes are to unify the rules and criteria for controlling access to regulated professions for people from other EU countries. For it is not clear in the Member States...

An accident at work has far-reaching consequences for an employer. An accident procedure must be initiated in which the accident investigation team examines the circumstances and causes of the accident, then includes their findings in an accident report. The labour inspector and public prosecutor must also be informed of any fatal, serious or collective accident. The labour inspector may initiate an inspection at the workplace and the public prosecutor may initiate criminal proceedings to investigate the accident.

Almost two years have passed since the GDPR came into being and yet many employers are still unaware that special regulations were introduced to the Workplace Social Benefits Fund Act which impose on them numerous obligations related to the processing of personal data for the purposes of granting benefits from the Workplace Social Benefits Fund (Zakładowy Fundusz Świadczeń Socjalnych, ZFŚS).