Posting employees – main changes
18 September is an important date for international employers seconding their employees to Poland.
This date marks the final time for the employer with the head office outside of Poland and seconding employees here to execute the duties resulting from the act on delegating employees within provision of services.
The act regulates the rules for, among others:
- Seconding employees in the territory and from the territory of the Republic of Poland within provision of services,
- Control over observing the regulations on seconding employees,
- Cooperation of the State Labour Inspection (PIP) with the competent bodies of other member countries as regards secondment of employees,
- Cross-border enforcement of administrative monetary penalties or administrative fines.
The provisions of the act shall be applied not only to employers with head offices in the territory of an EU member state, but also, respectively, in case of seconding employees in the territory of the Republic of Poland by employers who have head offices in a country that is not an EU member country.
The act implements the principle that the employer seconding an employee to the territory of the Republic of Poland ensures for this employee employment conditions that are not less beneficial than these resulting from the regulations of the Polish labour law in the scope of, among others, standards and dimension of working time, amount of remuneration, leave entitlement, industrial safety.
The State labour Inspection obtained the right to inspect correctness of seconding employees in the territory of the Republic of Poland. The inspection shall cover:
- The reality of the entrepreneur conducting major activities in the territory of another state,
- Temporary nature of the secondment.
However, the most important thing is that the act imposes on employers seconding employees to the territory of the Republic of Poland a number of new duties, the most important of which are:
- Filing the statement (in the Polish and English languages) with PIP including the detailed identification details of the employer and the employees seconded to Poland.
- Appointing a person, staying in the area of the Republic of Poland, to be authorised for intermediation in contacts with PIP,
- Storing in the territory of the Republic of Poland in the paper or electronic form the documentation related to the seconded employee (a copy of the contract of employment, the documentation about working time, the documents related to the amount of remuneration of the seconded employee)
- Providing the documents stated in the act on demand of PIP (this obligation remains valid during the period of 2 years after completion of work by the seconded employee.
Failure to meet the above obligations is subject to the penalty of fine up to 30,000 PLN.