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The CJEU ruling has recently emerged regarding the payment of overtime pay to part-time employees. According to it, it is impermissible to pay overtime allowance to such employees only if the total hours are the same as for full-time employees. The case involved a German pilot who started the litigation by claiming that in the case of part-time employment, the thresholds beyond which payment of overtime allowance is due should be proportionally reduced. The CJEU agreed with his claim and ruled that such national regulations lead to less favorable treatment of part-time employees.
What does this mean for employers? Part-time employees will be able to demand more for overtime in the future. At the same time, this may affect the amendment of Polish national legislation.
By a decision of the European Council, temporary protection for Ukrainian citizens fleeing the war has been extended until 4 March 2025. Temporary protection is a mechanism that collectively, i.e. without considering individual applications, provides legal residence, access to the labour market or social assistance, among other things. The EU decision obliges the Polish legislator to extend temporary protection at the level of the national order. However, so far no decision has been made to change the current legislation – on the basis of the Ukrainian speculative law, Ukrainian citizens are under protection until 4 March 2024. Such a situation negatively affects the labour market, and employers fear an outflow of Ukrainian workers to countries that have already implemented changes in the extension of temporary protection.
On 17 November this year, an amendment will come into force, amending the existing regulation on health and safety at work at workplaces equipped with screen monitors. The new wording of the regulations will allow employees to request a desktop monitor from their employer in situations where work is performed using a laptop computer for at least half of the daily working hours. The regulation also gives employers the option of equipping such an employee with a special laptop stand instead of a monitor. Whether employers will have to provide additional monitors to remote employees as well will most likely be decided by the State Labour Inspectorate.
In addition, the amendment extends the employer’s obligation to provide eyeglasses or contact lenses, as recommended by a doctor, if test results indicate the need for their use at work. Until now, the regulations only referred to glasses.
According to the latest data released by the Central Statistical Office, there were 982.2 thousand foreigners working in Poland as of the end of April 2023, including 386 thousand based on civil law contracts. The above figures show that the share of foreigners is 6.4% in relation to the total number of workers. It is significant that this rate has increased by 1.2 percentage points compared to last year. Nevertheless, procedures to legalize the work and residence of foreigners remain lengthy and demanding. More and more citizens of other countries are coming to Poland, as evidenced by the numbers of applications submitted. As a result, offices are overloaded with the number of cases, and waiting for a decision on residence and work permits can take up to several months.
As of 1 January 2024, the minimum wage will increase to PLN 4242 gross per month, and as of 1 July 2024 to PLN 4300 gross. According to estimates, about 3.6 million people will be covered by the minimum wage increase next year. Employers whose employees benefit from increased deductible expenses, the so-called 50% deductible, in exchange for the transfer of economic copyrights to works created within the framework of the employment relationship, will have to verify whether the non-author part of the remuneration paid corresponds to at least the applicable minimum wage. The above is due to the fact that the royalty is not a component of remuneration within the meaning of the Law on Minimum Wage. Failure to pay an employee at least the minimum wage entails an obligation to compensate the employee for it up to the aforementioned amount, regardless of how much the employee earned including the royalty.
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