flash news: #State Labour Inspection
This week saw the publication of the amendment to the Act on the State Labour Inspectorate (PIP), which was announced several months ago. This reform, which the government had committed to as one of the milestones of the National Recovery Plan, is intended to streamline the inspectorate’s work and provide it with more effective tools to enforce compliance with labour law.
The key elements of the reform are summarised the following five points.
The guidelines of the bill amending the State Labour Inspectorate Act have been published in the government's legislative work list. The changes result from the need to implement the milestones written into the National Recovery Plan (KPO).
The Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy has appointed a team to draw up proposals to reform the National Labour Inspectorate (PIP). This follows from changes to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which the Council of Ministers approved in January of this year. The team’s main tasks will include preparing legislation to improve the Labour Inspectorate's operation and coming up with solutions to better protect individuals employed under civil law contracts.
The State Labour Inspectorate (PIP) plans to carry out 55,000 audits in 2025. According to information presented at the end of last year in the Sejm, one of the key areas of these audits will be the legality of employing foreign citizens in Poland, which is assigned strategic importance.
The government plans to strengthen the powers of the National Labour Inspectorate (PIP) by empowering inspectors to independently convert civil law contracts into employment contracts, if they find that the law has been circumvented.
On 12 June 2024, the Chief Labour Inspectorate presented a report on the State Labour Inspectorate’s activities in 2023 to the Speaker of the Sejm (lower house of Polish parliament).
It shows that in 2023, the number of complaints made to the State Labour Inspectorate fell by more than 14%, compared to the previous year. Most complaints were to do with the following irregularities:
- failure to pay remuneration for work
- shortfalls in the payment of remuneration
- late payment of remuneration.