Background for Poland

Poland’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was 47% higher in 2022 than in 2012. In 2021, GDP growth amounted to 6.7%, rebounding from the COVID-19-induced contraction in 2020. In 2022, GDP growth slowed to 4.9%, a result that was better than expected in the circumstances. In 2022, unemployment levels remained low, with an average annual unemployment rate of 2.9%, which was significantly below the EU27 average (6.2%). Despite the absorption of approximately 800,000 Ukrainian refugees into the Polish labour market, by the end of 2022 unemployment remained at 2.9%, while youth unemployment rose to 10.8% in the second half of 2022.

EU/European Economic Area citizens may take up employment in Poland without a work permit, just like Polish citizens, under the principle of the free movement of people (the rules implementing free movement of persons are regulated by Directive 2004/38/EC on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States).

Searching for a job can be done either individually by the jobseeker or through the following institutions: the public employment (labour) administration, which runs the Central Database of Job Offers (Centralna Baza Ofert Pracy) (registration required); the European Employment Services (EURES) network; the Voluntary Labour Corps (Ochotnicze Hufce Pracy), which provides recruitment services mainly for young people; private employment agencies (this is a licensed activity; such agencies must be issued with a certificate issued by the regional authorities – that is, by the voivodeship marshal); and websites (namely through job advertisements placed directly by employers).

The amount of undeclared work has remained stable in recent years. According to Statistics Poland (Główny Urząd Statystyczny, GUS), 5.4% of all people in employment (that is, around 880,000 people) performed unregistered work in 2017, compared with 4.5% (roughly 700,000) in 2014. Unfortunately, as of 2022, GUS no longer provides these data.

More information can be found on the following web pages:

• European Commission: EURES – living and working in Poland

• Eurofound: European Industrial Relations Dictionary – Undeclared work

• Data:  Tackling undeclared work in Europe

The Labour Code (Kodeks pracy) regulates the rights and duties of employees and employers in Poland. A major attempt to reform the Labour Code failed in 2018, as the Polish parliament decided not to proceed with two draft regulations (one dealing with individual and the other with collective employment relations).

In 2017, regulations introducing hourly minimum pay (PLN 13 (€3.12 as at July 15 2024), increased to PLN 18.30 (€4.07) in 2021) entered into force. Approximately 0.5 million people in the labour market, for whom work based on freelance contracts is their main form of activity, benefited from the new law.

In 2018, the Trade Unions Act (Ustawa o związkach zawodowych) was amended, extending the right to association to ‘persons performing paid work’, regardless of the legal basis of their employment relationship. However, non-employees must remain in the relationship with their employer for six months before ‘earning’ their right to union eligibility. The vast majority of the amendments came into force on 1 January 2019. The Act on the Social Dialogue Council and Other Social Dialogue Bodies (Ustawa o Radzie Dialogu Społecznego i innych instytucjach dialogu społecznego) was also amended, with the maximum number of social partner delegates to the Social Dialogue Council (Rada Dialogu Społecznego, RDS) becoming 25 on each side.

In 2020, due to the pandemic, extensive employment protection mechanisms were introduced into the Labour Code. Employers (initially all of them, but, since mid-2020, only those in sectors such as hospitality and recreation) could apply for subsidies (that is, the ‘Anti-crisis Shield’ (Tarcza Antykryzysowa)). The amount they had to pay back was limited if they managed to retain their employment levels. During the pandemic, employees could also access employment grants and subsidies from the Labour Fund (Fundusz Pracy) and the Social Insurance Institution (Zakład Ubezpieczeń Społecznych, ZUS).

In 2020, some Labour Code regulations regarding compulsory paid leave and severance payments were temporarily relaxed. Telework was introduced into the Labour Code – at first in a manner of flexible, temporary measures, but a new chapter on teleworking was added to the Labour Code, which came into force in April 2023. This new chapter covers the areas of health and safety and the employer’s financial participation in the costs of teleworking. It also encourages parents of young children, pregnant women and caregivers to work remotely.

Industrial relations and social dialogue in Poland are regulated by the Labour Code, the Trade Unions Act, the Act on Employer Organisations (Ustawa o organizacjach pracodawców), the Act on Resolving Collective Disputes (Ustawa o rozwiązywaniu sporów zbiorowych) and the Act on the Social Dialogue Council and Other Social Dialogue Bodies (Ustawa o Radzie Dialogu Społecznego i innych instytucjach dialogu społecznego).

Industrial relations in Poland can be described as a blend of pluralism, neo-corporatism and statism, which is reflected in the variety of labels employed to describe the situation, including ‘illusory corporatism’ (Ost, 2000), ‘pluralism’ (Meardi, 2002) and ‘fake corporatism’ (King, 2007). For Bechter et al (2012), Poland (like other countries in central and eastern Europe) is a ‘mixed’ or ‘empty’ case. More recent analyses have provided evidence for emerging neo-statism (with growing state voluntarism) (Czarzasty and Mrozowicki, 2018). Polish industrial relations combine a high level of collective bargaining decentralisation with the relatively weak institutions of social dialogue at national level (the RDS and, previously, the Tripartite Commission on Social and Economic Affairs (Trójstronna Komisja ds. Społeczno-Gospodarczych)) and underdeveloped industry-level collective bargaining. Most collective bargaining takes place at company level.

Membership density is weak among both trade unions and employer organisations. For many years there has been an important political divide between trade unions, reflecting their communist and anti-communist pasts. The ‘competitive pluralism’ (Gardawski, 2003) of trade unions reflects their fragmentation and inter-union competition.

The state plays an important role in Polish industrial relations. First, it is an important employer, as, in 2021, 17.6% of employees worked in the public sector in Poland (this figure includes only administration and public services employees and does not cover companies with dominating state ownership). Second, national legislation remains the basic reference point for setting minimum wages and working conditions for most employees in the private sector due to limited collective bargaining coverage at all levels. Third, the state authorities play a crucial role in tripartite social dialogue at national and regional levels.

In June 2015, new legislation re-establishing the tripartite social dialogue system in the country was adopted, and, in October, new tripartite bodies began their operations. Following the victory of Andrzej Duda in the presidential elections in June 2015, in October 2015 his former party – Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS) – won the parliamentary elections, securing the majority of seats in both chambers. The new government’s initial phase of operations was marked by a number of pro-employee changes in the legal environment (as outlined above) and relatively high attentiveness of the government to tripartite consultations. However, since 2017, there have been growing signs of a return to the former government’s selective approach to tripartism (marked by avoiding or disregarding tripartite consultations whenever they are seen as an obstacle to the fulfilment of government policy objectives). In 2019, PiS won the parliamentary elections again, but lost its independent majority in the Senate, which is the upper chamber of parliament (its legislative competences, however, are significantly smaller than those of the lower chamber, namely the Sejm). In 2020, Andrzej Duda was re-elected to the office of president. During the pandemic, the activity of the RDS continued, but, in the opinion of some trade union representatives, the quality of social dialogue has been gradually deteriorating at all levels. The government planned to introduce the possibility of the prime minister dismissing RDS members, but this idea was successfully blocked by social partners. In October 2022, the president of Confederation Lewiatan (Konfederacja Lewiatan) (one of the major employer organisations in the RDS) was detained by the Central Anti-corruption Bureau (Centralne Biuro Antykorupcyjne) during the meeting of the executive committee of the RDS and on the day of Confederation Lewiatan’s annual conference – the European Forum for New Ideas (Europejskie Forum Nowych Idei) – in Sopot. The prosecutor’s case was so weak that the courts did not agree on a temporary arrest. To date, the case has not been concluded. However, this event resulted in a significant deterioration of relations between the RDS and the government. RDS members have also indicated that they feel sidelined in the public consultations process and have pointed out that, in relation to some ideas, the government consults only its preferred organisations (on both the trade union side and the employer side).

RDS members are also hoping that their position can be strengthened as a result of the national recovery and resilience plan (Krajowy Plan Odbudowy) reforms, but those have been delayed.