The author points out that a Deputy may receive a severance pay in connection with retirement, if the retirement pension right existed before the acquirement of the status of a Deputy and the payment of the retirement pension was initiated later, after completion of the age specified by law. The severance pay in connection with retirement is due only if the Deputy has not received this benefit based on other rules. If a Deputy possesses several such rights, he/she must choose one of them.
The status of an employee entails compulsory coverage by social insurance, regardless of the em‑ ployer’s fulfilment of the obligation to report the employee to social insurance and pay contribu‑ tions. The Act on the Social Insurance System does not provide for the possibility of paying so‑ cial insurance contributions for a retroactive period without proving the title of a person’s social insurance coverage (e.g. employment relationship) during the relevant period. At present, illegal employment or understatement of the employees’ contribution basis causes that the contribu‑ tions are not imposed on the insured person and all of them are payable by the employer from the employer’s own funds. This new regulation casts doubts regarding financial settlements between the employees and the employers due to the rules of financing contributions in earlier periods.
A Deputy, running a Deputy’s office, is a natural person employing other natural persons. However, this activity is not of an economic nature. Therefore, a Deputy is not an entity obliged to establish employee capital plans. There is also no legal basis for their voluntary creation.
The suggested amendment to the Labour Code aims to introduce a provision obliging employers to include periods of non-agricultural activity in the periods on which employee benefits or rights depend. The provision is to be placed in the chapter declaring fundamental principles of labour law. The author states that there is no systemic justification for including this type of norm among the basic principles of labour law, without taking into account the currently used differentiation of the position of employees in specific situations. In her opinion, the proposed regulation raises doubts from the perspective of the constitutional principle of equality, especially in the context of adequacy and proportionality to the assumed goal.
Social insurance law and labour law have been intrinsically interrelated since the very beginning of their existence, as they cover the same sphere of human activity. At present we can observe that these relations are weakening mainly due to the continuously extending personal scope of social insurance law. The most important relations between social insurance law and labour law may be classified as relations of material (defining conditions of granting benefits), functional (legal methodology and political measures) and organisational (administrative) nature. A shift in the direction of the influence on shaping the rights and obligations of the labour relationship parties may be observed. It is no longer labour law that exclusively determines the situations protected (insurance risk), but to a broader extent both social insurance law and labour law are used simultaneously to reach a goal that is pursued.
In the author’s opinion, when taking the decision the examining physician should take into account the general criteria indicated in the definition, i.e., “a violation of the body’s efficiency to the extent that it requires constant or long-term care and help of another person in satisfying basic life needs”. Decision criteria are not specified by other provisions. Determining the occurrence of incapacity for independent existence is made in specific cases by certifying doctors or medical boards of the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) or by courts examining appeals against ZUS decisions.
According to the author, it should be recognized that it is admissible to conclude an employment contract, to which a completely incapacitated person would be a party. In such a case, the contract should be concluded by a guardian of such a person. Employment of a totally legally incapacitated person should meet the requirements of the Act on Vocational and Social Rehabilitation and Employment of Disabled Persons, including those relating to the performance of work in sheltered employment conditions or in a position adapted by the employer to the needs of such person. The assessment of the admissibility of employing a completely legally incapacitated person in a kindergarten as a janitor should be performed assessing each case individually, taking into account the cause of incapacitation and the scope of facilitations introduced by the employer.
In the Polish public old-age insurance scheme requirements for the old-age pension payment are differentiated for employees and other groups of insured persons. The pensionable age is 60 (women) or 65 (men). However, in case of employees, the old-age pension entitlement is suspended, irrespective of income, if employment performed directly before the date of acquiring old-age pension right settled by a decision of the social security institution is continued without its prior termination. This solution results from political, judicial and theoretical discussions undertaken over many years and presented in this paper. The formal recognition of the old-age pension entitlement differs from its realisation. Thus, the contingency does not cover survival beyond a prescribed age as such, but it rather pertains to the termination of employment and similar events (i.e., transformation of the disability pension into old-age pension, application of the person concerned) which here are collectively referred to as “retirement.” The regulation was adopted in order to reduce the costs of benefits while enabling smooth replacement of older employees by younger ones, because at the same time, courts developed stricter antidiscriminatory case law on the admissibility of dismissals on the grounds of acquiring pension rights. Meanwhile, the labour market situation changed and fiscal or labour law solutions supporting the activity of senior workers should be correlated with the complex regulation of the old-age pension entitlement.
In Poland the obligation to counteract bullying (mobbing) is imposed on employers by Article 943 of the Labour Code. The method of fulfilling this obligation is not indicated. The regulation is limited to precising the employer’s liability. Also the Act on Trade Unions does not deal with the trade unions’ competences in the field of bullying (mobbing). Yet, it proclaims the protection of dignity and moral interests of persons performing work, both individual and collective ones, as one of the tasks of trade unions. Thus, it is sometimes suggested that trade union’s representatives should take active part in activities and possible bodies aiming to counteract bullying (mobbing). However, admitting a trade union’s representative to employer’s activities aiming to counteract bullying might lead to infringement of the negative freedom of trade unions, personal rights and data of those people involved who are not trade union’s members.
PL
Polski Kodeks pracy w art. 943 nakłada na pracodawców obowiązek przeciwdziałania mobbingowi. Nie wskazuje sposobu realizacji tego obowiązku. Ogranicza się do określenia odpowiedzialności pracodawcy. Ustawa o związkach zawodowych również nie precyzuje kompetencji związków dotyczących mobbingu. Stanowi natomiast, że zadaniem związku zawodowego jest ochrona godności oraz interesów moralnych osób wykonujących pracę zarobkową, zarówno zbiorowych, jak i indywidualnych. Występują więc postulaty, aby w działaniach i ewentualnych ciałach mających przeciwdziałać mobbingowi czynnie uczestniczyli przedstawiciele organizacji związkowych. Jednak dopuszczenie przedstawiciela związków zawodowych do organizowanego przez pracodawcę przeciwdziałania mobbingowi mogłoby grozić naruszeniem negatywnej wolności związkowej, dóbr osobistych lub danych osobowych osób uczestniczących w postępowaniu, które nie są członkami związku.
Od opublikowania książki Izabeli Kryśpiak Koordynacja emerytur i rent w prawie Unii Europejskiej oraz umowach międzynarodowych Polski – różnice oraz wzajemne oddziaływanie minęło już dość dużo czasu. Jednak wciąż warto ją przedstawić lub przypomnieć jako cenne źródło wiedzy i inspiracji w sprawach świadczeń socjalnych osób migrujących. Upływ czasu nie wpłynął znacząco na rozpatrywany stan prawny: weszły już w życie umowy z Mongolią i Izraelem, ale do momentu napisania tej recenzji wciąż nie weszły w życie nowe umowy i decyzje wykonawcze do umów stowarzyszeniowych zawartych przez Unię Europejską (UE) (zob. s. 377 i nast.). Natomiast opisane w publikacji mechanizmy mogą być bardzo przydatne przy analizie postanowień dotyczących brexitu. W tym kontekście należy obecnie odczytywać częste w tekście uwagi o wyjątkach dotyczących Wielkiej Brytanii. Jest to jeden z powodów, dla których akurat teraz warto powrócić do opracowania I. Kryśpiak.
The article aims to assess if women’s problems are specifically identified in labour legislation relating to digitalisation. Women appear in preparatory phases of legislative procedures (reports, motives), while usually they are not explicitly addressed in final drafts or acts. Digitalisation of work of women as such, referring to biological features of the gender itself is not perceived as a specific problem to be solved. Female workers are not treated as a vulnerable group which should benefit from additional guarantees in the process of digitalisation. It proves that in digitalised work, sex is not a distinctive feature: both sexes are able and skilled to work with digital devices. Criteria used to identify vulnerable groups refer to social situations rather than sex itself (e.g. education and training, caring responsibilities). However, women tend to constitute the majority of such groups. Therefore, respective ‘horizontal’ protective provisions and standards (e.g. working time, right to disconnect, work-life balance or non-discrimination) are particularly important for women.
In the author’s opinion, the amendment of social security benefits proposed in the analysed bill is a major systemic change concerning the tenets of the right to social security. The proposed solution consists in changing the well-established basic principles concerning the overlapping of entitlements from different types of social insurance and different social security systems. The purpose of the proposed changes is to maintain the quality of life of a widowed person after the death of a spouse. In the view of the opinion’s author, these changes set a higher standard than the one adopted so far by the Constitutional Tribunal and being currently in force. The bill requires legislative refinement, in particular with regard to the use of the term ‘widow’s pension’.
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