Labour and Social Security Journal 04/2026

The purpose of this study is to provide a theoretical and doctrinal analysis of two variants of established practice as instruments for strengthening legal certainty in labour law. The analysis is comparative in nature and aims to identify both similarities and differences between these variants, as well as to demonstrate their potential for supporting the protective function of labour law. First, the paper examines custom and customary law within the workplace communi­ty. It then analyses labour-law interpretation “binding” by consensus as an analogous, though differently structured, mechanism of stabilization. Although the latter phenome­non occurs across various branches of law, its examination in the context of labour law appears particularly valuable in light of the specific features of this field and the special role that legal certainty plays for the parties to the employ­ment relationship. The autonomy of legal dogmatics entails that the modes of argumentation and justification under­lying the “binding force” of interpretation differ depend­ing on the branch of law concerned. Intuitions regarding the “binding” nature of interpretation arise differently in criminal or tax law than they do in labour or civil law. The analysis undertaken in this study may therefore serve as a useful point of departure for more detailed inquiries into the requirements of legal certainty for the parties to the em­ployment relationship.

This article provides a critical analysis of the legal model for the protection of platform workers proposed in Platform Directive 2024/2831 in the context of its implementation into Polish law, which Poland has until December 2, 2026, to complete. The only idea for improving the working con­ditions of people working professionally through platforms is the mechanism of presumption of employment, under which the EU legislator is attempting to “force” platform workers into an employment relationship in order to pro­vide them with protection. This solution is questionable from the point of view of the structural features of an em­ployment relationship, and besides, the proposed presump­tion seems to be flawed and ineffective in the long term. The Platform Directive 2024/2831 does not, in principle, provide for any additional safeguards for genuinely self-em­ployed persons working through platforms who will retain their status due to the lack of grounds for establishing the existence of an employment relationship.

The paper argues that the prevailing privacy-centred par­adigm shaped by regimes such as the GDPR prevents us from treating data as a source of collective claims and value redistribution. It calls for a shift from individual protection to collective data governance, where data becomes a field of negotiation and organising. Three vectors are discussed: (1) data unions and data intermediaries as institutions of representation, (2) trade unions as potential data brokers both at and beyond the workplace, and (3) new repertoires of collective agency, including the data strike. The paper also identifies structural obstacles (lack of place, owner­ship and language) that hinder the politicisation of data and proposes minimal institutional footholds: data clauses in collective agreements, algorithmic audits, data steward­ship, and mechanisms for sharing data-generated value. The conclusion outlines avenues for further research: legal feasibility of co-administration, methods to measure the contribution of data to value creation, and inclusion risks in the “socialisation” of data.

The purpose of this article is to analyse the limitation pe­riod applicable to claims arising from unequal pay treat­ment in the context of the implementation of Article 21 of Directive (EU) 2023/970 into Polish law. The authors demonstrate that the draft Act of 12 December 2025 (UC 127) implements the Directive only fragmentarily, omitting a statutory determination of the commencement of the limitation period linked to the employee’s acquisition of knowledge of the infringement. This omission weakens the practical ability to pursue claims arising from pay discrim­ination. In light of this legislative gap, which has thus far been addressed only in a limited number of judgments of the Polish Supreme Court, the authors argue that linking the commencement of the limitation period to the moment when the employee becomes aware of the discrimination is essential to ensuring the effective protection against une­qual pay treatment. Drawing on the Directive, the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), and selected comparative foreign solutions, the article for­mulates implementation proposals aimed at ensuring the full and coherent transposition of Article 21 into Polish law.

Non-standard forms of work are characterised by a shift of normative risk to the worker, while in the employment relationship it should be the employer who bears this risk as the organiser of work. The author argues that social di­alogue can be an adequate means of shaping the allocation of risk in atypical employment. She shows how collective mechanisms already frame this risk to some extent, and provides ideas on how they can be further used in this area to provide adequate protection for workers.

The article examines the newly introduced mechanism of interim relief under Article 7555 of the Polish Code of Civil Procedure, which allows the court to order an employer to continue employing a specially protected employee until the final conclusion of proceedings. The analysis recon­structs the origins of the provision and compares it with the earlier instrument regulated in Article 477² § 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure. It argues that Article 7555 performs protective, compensatory and guarantee functions by re­ducing the adverse effects of lengthy litigation for employ­ees seeking reinstatement or a declaration that termination is ineffective. At the same time, the measure departs from the traditional model of interim relief, particularly from the rule that interim protection should not satisfy the prin­cipal claim. The article discusses the personal scope of the provision, the standard of manifest groundlessness, per­missible limits of changes in employment conditions during the interim period and the legal consequences of the lapse of the order. It concludes with a proposal for a proportion­al interpretation balancing effective employee protection with the employer’s organisational autonomy.

The article analyses the compensatory benefit for harm caused by vaccination in the Polish legal order. It discusses the origin and purpose of the benefit, the eligibility condi­tions and the method for determining its amount. It also presents the positions of scholars representing various branches of law regarding the legal nature of this benefit. Some consider it to be a lump-sum civil-law compensation awarded in a simplified procedure, while others argue that it constitutes a new type of social benefit, described as social (public) compensation. The text indicates that, during the legislative process, the lawmaker did not draw on research findings on social compensation benefits, resulting in the creation of an institution that cannot be clearly assigned to a single branch of law. According to the authors, the lawmaker also failed to define the concept of social compensation and did not take a clear position on establishing a new benefit within the social security sys­tem. Such a step would have contributed significantly to the field’s development.

The author discusses the case law of the Supreme Court concerning the status of a partner in a civil law partner­ship who is bound to the partnership (in addition to the partnership agreement) by an employment contract. She identifies situations in which the coexistence of these two relationships is not mutually exclusive and the partner may be subject to social security on the basis of their em­ployment status.

On the initiative of prof. Tomasz Duraj (head of the Center for Atypical Employment Relations), on 5 December 2025 at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Łódź, National Scientific Conference was held on the topic ‘Changes in regulations governing the employment of foreigners in Poland – revolution or evolution?’. The conference was organised by Centre for Atypical Employment Relations of the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Łódź, the District Labor Inspectorate in Łódź and the Students’ Forum for Atypical Employment Relations. The conference gathered around 120 partici­pants. The event was covered by the honorary patronage of: Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy, the Rec­tor of the University of Łódź, the Chief Labour Inspector and the President of the Social Insurance Institution.