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Dr hab. Helena Szewczyk
ORCID: 0000-0002-1425-981X

Dr hab. Helena Szewczyk, Assistant Professor at the Department of Labour Law and Social Policy at the Faculty of Law of the University of Silesia in Katowice. She is a graduate of the University of Economics in Katowice and the University of Silesia. Her research interests are related to labor law, clerical law and European labour law. She is the author of many scientificpublications (books, studies, articles, glosses, etc.). These publications mainly concern issues related to individual labour law, employment in the public sector and social security. He works as a legal advisor.

 
DOI: 10.33226/0032-6186.2023.6.4
JEL: K31

Older people are particularly exposed to multiple discrimination and mobbing in the work environment. The retirement age itself, together with the acquisition of pension rights, should not be an independent reason justifying termination of employment, but it should be related to the work performed (specific psychophysical and intellectual capacity) or the employer's situation. Age as a prohibited criterion of discrimination is, for example, listed in Art. 113 of the Criminal Code and Art. 183a § 1 of the Penal Code. Age is also a criterion explicitly mentioned in the framework directive 2000/78/EC. Age discrimination is generally distinguished as direct and indirect. The application of an unlawful criterion will not, however, in every case constitute a breach of the prohibition of discrimination, as different treatment of persons due to a specific criterion may, in a given case, be justified by important objective reasons. There are numerous shortcomings in the legal regulation of the protection of older people, including the definition of older people and the scope of their protection in the labor market. Effective counteracting age discrimination requires the implementation of new protection instruments at all stages of employment more effective in eliminating discrimination.

Keywords: employment; discrimination; grounds of discrimination; protection of employees; employer's liability for damages
DOI: 10.33226/0032-6186.2021.11.1
JEL: K15 i K31

The author discusses the provisions of the issue of disclosure of remuneration for work through the prism of the draft directive of the European Parliament and of the Council [(European Commission Brussels, 4.3.2021 COM (2021) 93 final 2021/0050 (COD)] on strengthening the application of the principle of equal pay for men and women for equal work or work of equal value through pay transparency mechanisms and enforcement mechanisms, which introduces new EUwide principles of pay transparency. The draft requires the Member States, inter alia the obligation to develop and adopt unified regulations on the rights of employees to ask the employer for information on the individual level of remuneration and the average level of remuneration, broken down by gender, in relations to the categories of employees performing the same work or work of the same value. The obligation to publish the salary offered as early as the job advertisement stage can improve wage transparency. Providing salary spreads in job offers should be a statutory obligation and favor transparency and transparency, as well as enforce equal pay regardless of gender and other discrimination criteria. Polish labour law is not adjusted to the standards contained in the draft directive. De lege lata, it is difficult to talk about openness, transparency and transparency of remuneration in national regulations. National implementation of the new directive will have a positive impact on the introduction of new standards in the field of wage policy, in particular in the field of counteracting wage discrimination and the functioning of fair wages in national law.

Keywords: employment; remuneration for work; wage discrimination; transparency of wages
DOI: 10.33226/0137-5490.2021.6.5
JEL: K15, K31

The new directive of the European Parliament and Council on the protection of persons reporting cases of violation of the European Union law (whistleblowing) introduces new principles of whistleblower protection in enterprises, homogenous in the entire European Union. This forces many changes in the national law. Legal protection of whistleblowers based on the Act on Liability of Collective Entities should be considered as one of the basic areas of activity aimed at ensuring protection against corruption and other unfavourable phenomena of the kind in enterprises. The draft Act on collective liability is to replace the virtually dead solutions of the current Act of 28 October 2002 with the same title. For this purpose, it is necessary that the legal terms of "whistleblowing" and "whistleblower", contained in the draft of the Act on liability of collective entities for offences under the regulation of the European Union, be specified more clearly in the Polish law. Answering the question of whether the new draft of the national law meets the norms set out by the legislation of the European Union for the Member States is paramount. The main objective of the article is therefore to assess the legal solutions regarding whistleblowing in a company contained in the draft act on the liability of collective entities for criminal acts and the protection of whistleblower under the new EU directive 1937/2019.

Keywords: enterprise; whistleblowing; whistleblower protection; liability of collective entity
DOI: 10.33226/0032-6186.2020.2.1
JEL: K15, K31

The new Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of persons reporting on breaches of Union law introduces new EU-wide rules on the protection of whistleblowers in the workplace. The Directive requires Member States to develop and adopt harmonised rules on how to receive report, carry out an enquiry, and provide legal protection of whistleblowers. It also makes it necessary to implement anonymous reporting channels, inform the whistleblower of the actions taken as follow up to the report, and provide for a timeframe of 3 months to make a decision on the inquiry. In addition, the Directive specifies the obligation to protect the personal data of all participants in the enquiry. The new Directive prohibits any retaliatory measures against whistleblowers and requires the adoption of effective and adequate measures to protect them. It ensures a wide personal scope of the protection of whistleblowers and a broad range of remedies by which this protection is implemented.

Keywords: employment; whistleblower; Union law