flash news
As of 1st January 2023, the per diem rate applicable to a domestic business trip is PLN 45 (legal basis: ordinance of the Minister of Family and Social Policy of 25th October 2022 amending the ordinance on business trip entitlements payable to employees of publicly funded state or local government units).
The Supreme Court has dismissed an extraordinary appeal of the Prosecutor General against a judgment that had awarded compensation to an employee for a breach of equal treatment on the grounds of sex and gender identity. The matter concerned a refusal to issue women’s work clothing to the employee.
The case involved a transgender person who had applied to be employed as a receptionist. The claimant was undergoing gender reassignment and had been perceived as a woman during the recruitment. However, she presented an earlier-issued personal identity card stating that she was male. As a result, the claimant was not issued with women’s work clothing, and it was pointed out to her that she was entitled to men’s attire, in accordance with the details of her personal identity card.
On 15 December, the Senate adopted an amendment to the Labour Code and certain other acts (on remote working and sobriety control) with the following amendments:
- occasional remote working will be allowed for 30 days per calendar year (rather than 24 days),
- a parent of a child up to the age of 10 (rather than up to the age of 4) will be able to request remote working and the employer will, in principle, have to grant such a request,
- employees with disabilities will also be able to request remote working and the employer will, in principle, have to grant such a request,
- there will be a longer vacatio legis for certain provisions of the Act, including provisions introducing remote working as envisaged by the Code – 3 months (rather than 2 months) after its public announcement.
The draft amendment will now go back to the Sejm (lower house of Parliament), which can either support or reject the Senate's amendments.
On 1 December, the Sejm (lower house of Parliament) passed a bill amending the Labour Code and certain other acts. Remote work will now appear in the Labour Code, defined as work performed wholly or partly at a location specified by the employee and agreed each time with the employer, including at the employee’s home address, in particular using means of direct distance communication.
On 15 November 2022, the second reading of the government’s bill on an ICT system to be used for certain contracts (no. 2766) was held. The draft bill applies to employers and mandators that are:
- micro-entrepreneurs/non-micro-entrepreneurs employing not more than 9 people,
- farmers in the meaning of the Act on Social Insurance for Farmers, dated 20 December 1990, and
- natural persons who are neither entrepreneurs nor farmers.
A bill (no 2642) providing for the addition of point 5 to the current Article 28(1) of the Trade Union Act of 23 May 1991 is currently under deliberation in the lower house of parliament (Sejm). According to the new provision, the employer will be obliged, at the request of a company trade union to provide information on: "parameters, rules and instructions on which algorithms or artificial intelligence systems are based, which influence decision-making and which may affect working and pay conditions, access to employment and its maintenance, including profiling".
The proposed amendment is expected to enter into force 14 days after publication.
Legislative stage: the bill was referred to committee for its first reading.