Labour and Social Security Journal 04/2024

The article deals with the topic of company-level sources of labor law on the rules of remote work. Provisions on remote work were included in the Labor Code, replacing telework. The text analyses the issue of the agreement concluded by the employer with the trade union and the introduction of regulations on remote work. In this context, the introduction of remote working on the basis of an agreement concluded individually with the employee may be questionable.

The aim of the article is to analyze the provisions of the directive 2019/1152 in terms of establishing transparent and predictable working conditions as well as to present the way of their implementation into Polish law. The authors raise the question whether the mechanisms used in this area are only a correction of the existing solutions or whether they can be considered a step towards changing the employment relationship model.

The Article aims to present and characterize phenomenon of crunch, which occurs in IT industry, especially in video game producers and its influence on employment relationships. The period of crunch, leads to unusual employees involvement in process of work. Even though is possible according to polish legal system, it should correspond appropriate provisions. The main aim of this article is showing legal restrictions of crunch in the polish labour law system. The first of all this dissertation answers the question: does the phenomenon of crunch could be a condition of work in overtime hours? and: what are the legal limitations in terms of overtime working hours during the crunch period? The author presents also relations between crunch and guarantees of daily and weekly rest of work, working at night and work on Sundays and holidays.

At the beginning of the article, comments are made on the concept, manifestation and basic attribute of parenthood. In this regard, it is stated that: 1) parental ties are vertical relationships occurring between parents (biological, foster, adoptive) or carers (legal or actual) and children (own, second spouse or adopted), 2) the forms of parenthood are maternity, paternity, adoption and care) and 3) the attribute of parenthood is the exercise of parental roles involving the exercise of parental authority. Next, parenthood was analyzed from the point of view of social risk on the assumption that it is a heterogeneous concept in the sense of the multiplicity and diversity of factual events to the occurrence of which social security legislation links the acquisition of parental entitlements. The events (in particular, the birth of a child) giving rise to the right to maternity benefit from social sickness insurance were specifically analyzed. Finally, it is concluded that the automatic extension of social insurance protection to all, constantly expanding, parental entitlements from the sphere of labor law and from non-employment titles causes the maternity benefit in its current form to become detached from the socio-economic purpose of social insurance, and the growing expenses for its financing deepen the deficit in the sickness fund of the Social Insurance Fund. As a consequence, which was considered inappropriate, the maternity benefit is increasingly becoming similar to benefits of the subsidiary part of social security serving – like other benefits in this area (e.g., child-support benefit) – to implement the state's social (pro-family) policy of supporting families with children. 

The author presents the issue of the remuneration for overtime work in part-time employment in the context of the evolution of the relevant case law of the Court of Justice of the EU with reference to the judgement in case on 19 October 2023, C-660/20, MK vs. Lufthansa CityLine and its implications for the Polish legal order. In accordance with the above mentioned ruling the national legislation which makes the payment of additional remuneration for part-time workers and comparable full-time workers uniformly contingent on the same number of working hours being exceeded in a given activity, must be regarded as a 'less favourable' treatment of part-time workers.

The subject of the commentary is the issue of the correctness of the Polish Supreme Court's judgment of September 20, 2023, 20/09/2023, II PSKP 30/22, in the light of the following groups of issues that emerge while reading it: the difference between the objective correction of the employee's action and the objective change of his action; abuse of the labour law procedural entitlement by the defendant employer; characteristics of an employee's appeal against the employer's unilateral declaration of termination (declaration of expiry) of the employment relationship; abuse of the substantive labour law entitlement by the plaintiff employee and the limitation or prescription of this entitlement.

The author discusses various lines of jurisprudence and the current position of the Supreme Court regarding the issue of sanctions for violating the principles of equal treatment and non-discrimination.