The paper discusses the institution of voluntary resignations as a tool gaining increasingly greater importance in staff reductions nowadays. It is an effort to provide the instrument's definition and present its legal nature with a particular emphasis put on legal ramifications stemming from inclusion or omission of the social component of trade unions into the process of preparation and implementation of Voluntary Resignations Plan (the 'PDO', abbrievated from Polish)  as an alternative solution to lay-offs. The article is grounded in the verdicts from the Supreme Court referring to the complexity of voluntary resignations as well as provides an insight into a range of publications specific to the problem discussed herein.