Przemysław Zając
Przemysław Zając, attorney-at-law, practises employment law, mainly involving ongoing advice. He drafts employment contracts, civil-law agreements, and internal workplace policies. He takes part in due diligence and compliance reviews. He represents employers and employees in judicial disputes.
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected work organisation, particularly in the services sector, but also in white-collar and administrative/office work. To reduce the risk of infection, where possible, many employees switched to remote working, and business meetings became virtual. This model quickly gained popularity and was gradually implemented more widely, even after the peak of the pandemic had passed.
After numerous comments were made during the opinion process on a draft act about which we wrote in the article Draft new definition of mobbing = new obligations for employers, the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy on 5 June 2025 published a new version of the draft on the Governmental Legislation Centre website.
Compared to the previous version, the bill contains several changes to regulations aimed at systematising the definition of mobbing, as well as introducing legal solutions that are new to Polish labour law, such as the employer's right to claims against the perpetrator of mobbing.
Rights of trade unions
Under the Act on Trade Unions, the rights of a trade union depend on the level of its membership.
The required levels of membership are:
- at least 10 members for a workplace trade union,
- a total of at least 10 members across all the employers spanned by an inter-workplace trade union (it is sufficient for a given employer to have one employee as a member of an inter-workplace trade union for that union to enjoy trade union rights).
On 20 January 2025, the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy published a draft act amending the Labour Code on the website of the Governmental Legislation Centre. The amendments are intended to clarify the definition of mobbing, which has existed in the Polish legal system for over 20 years, and to impose new obligations on employers.
The Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy has drawn up a bill modifying the existing definition of mobbing which has been in effect for more than 20 years. The bill amending the provisions of the Labour Code (UD183) was published on the Government Legislation Centre’s website on 20 January 2025. It alters concepts and provisions related to undesirable behaviour in the workplace, such as discrimination, unequal treatment and mobbing. How will the change in the definition of mobbing affect employers and employees?
What can a whistleblower report?
On 24 June 2024, the Whistleblowers Protection Act was published in the Journal of Laws. After a delay of several years, Poland - as the last European Union country - implemented the Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council (EU) on the protection of whistleblowers into its legal order. Thus, the period of vacatio legis, which is three months for most provisions, commenced. They will enter into force at the end of September 2024.
The Act allows whistleblowers to make reports or public disclosures if they identify violations of the branches of law set out in the Act. It is therefore worth answering the seemingly trivial question of what matters a report can address.