Labour and Social Security Journal 03/2026

The article analyses selected provisions of the Artificial In­telligence Act (AI Act) concerning employers’ obligations related to the use of AI systems in the workplace, taking into account the employer’s role as a provider or a deploy­er under the Regulation. It seeks to determine whether the mechanisms adopted, including risk assessment and system classification, oversight requirements, information duties, and the Fundamental Rights Impact Assessment (FRIA), ensure effective standards of safety and respect for workers’ rights, or whether, due to the specific features of the employment relationship, they may prove of limited effectiveness.

The Act on Collective Labour Agreements and Other Col­lective Labour Arrangements, adopted on 5 November, has, under Article 22, opened a broad procedural avenue for ju­dicial review of the legality of collective labour agreements. This provision establishes two categories of cases aimed at judicial scrutiny of the legality of such agreements: on the one hand, review of their substantive compliance with labour law provisions, and, on the other, review of their conformity with the regulations governing their conclusion. The former thus has a primarily substantive-law character, while the latter concerns matters of an organisational and procedural nature. These cases fall within the jurisdiction of the labour courts and are conducted under non-conten­tious proceedings. Despite certain shortcomings identified in this study, the procedural mechanisms established by the said Act give effect, within the Polish legal system, to the constitutional right of access to a court, thereby promoting the consolidation of the rule of law standards in employ­ment relations shaped by collective regulation.

The purpose of the paper is to identify the main problems related to the functioning of trade unions in capital groups. In particular, the paper deals with a sense of fairness, coop­eration, and the importance of profit distribution in terms of bargaining positions. The study included four different trade unions. Interviews were conducted with 35 union’s representatives and with 5 top managers (members of the board). The initial stage of the study was followed by inter­views with representatives of the top management bodies of a few capital groups.

In the article the author discusses situations of applying sanctions prescribed in Polish Insolvency Act to an employ­ee, i.e. person being a part of employment contract. Some of these sanctions are possible to apply in case of insolven­cy of a debtor being an employer, regardless of an insolven­cy order. Additionally some of them are necessary during insolvency proceedings to prevent from ineffectiveness of the proceedings. The discussion comprise: avoidance ac­tions referring to employee’s salary, his liability in tort and criminal responsibility, coercive measures, and disqualifi­cation of directors. Sanctions applied to an employee are of course exceptions, that become real if an employee is at the same time a director (member of a directory board) or a manager, in some cases – even a shadow director. These sanctions are motivated by the necessity of protection of creditors and generally the certainty of legal transactions.

The aim of the analysis is to determine the relationship between working time and the time of work. The analysis demonstrates that the Polish definition of working time is inconsistent with the EU definition, which makes rational interpretation and application of the law impossible. This applies, for example, to preparatory work activities, which, according to the Polish definition of working time, should be classified as work. The author argues that, for the sake of legal consistency and rationality, Article 128 of the Labor Code should be defined as referring to the time spent performing work, not to working time, thereby en­suring the compatibility of Polish law with EU law.

The article discusses one of the issues that raises doubts in the doctrine and case law on the basis of Article 39 of the Labor Code regulating special protection of an employee of pre-retirement age against termination. Namely, it con­cerns whether the prohibition of termination provided for in this provision applies to employment under a fixed-term employment contract also when the contract was conclud­ed for a period that expires before the employee reaches retirement age. In the author’s opinion, the answer to this question should be negative. However, the Supreme Court expressed a different opinion in the resolution of a bench of seven judges of 30 September 2025, III PZP 6/24.

The ruling under review concerns the possibility of im­plementing internal regulations that stipulate specific requirements pertaining to the appearance of employ­ees categorised on the basis of sex. The Supreme Court correctly determined that the limit of interference in the appearance of employees is not only the obligation to respect their personal rights, but also the prohibition of discrimination in employment. Consequently, an employ­er is prohibited from imposing requirements that would unjustifiably differentiate between employees on the basis of the protected characteristics. The commentator asserts that the conclusions and arguments presented in the com­mented ruling merit approval, even though the Court did not issue a definitive ruling on the question of the com­plete differentiation of the rules concerning the appear­ance of female and male employees. The author contends that well-established cultural norms in this regard do not provide sufficient justification if internal regulations fail to meet the requirements of the principle of proportionality.

The author discusses the latest Supreme Court ruling con­cerning a significant issue that has arisen in the practice of the Social Insurance Institution, namely the conditions for entitlement to a proportional reduction in social security contributions for an insured person conducting non-agri­cultural business activity who has become incapacitated for work due to illness covering part of a month.

The judgment in the Ineo Infracom case, C-249/24, repre­sents a subsequent statement by the CJEU on the EU con­cept of ‘collective redundancies”. The Court attempts to clarify the criterion of a substantial change to an essential element of the employment contract for reasons not relat­ed to the worker. The author compares the EU definition with the Polish institution of ‘notice of amendment’, an­ticipating practical difficulties in applying the criterion in question. She advocates resolving any doubts in favour of finding that the employer has a duty to inform and consult workers’ representatives on the contemplated collective redundancies.