Labour and Social Security Journal 09/2024

The polish social insurance financial system remains inefficient. The financial efficiency, understood as a measure of the ability to finance social security benefits from social security contributions, is decreasing. This is primarily due to the aging of the population. Therefore, a key legislative action remains the definition of the response in law to possible difficulties in the realization of social insurance benefits. The purpose of the study is to define the assumptions of a law on the formation of the financial constitution of the social insurance system. With such a law, it is also possible to introduce external monitoring of the ability to pay social security contributions and the sustainability of social insurance to cover all expenses of Social Insurance Fund. The legislature and the Constitutional Court, knowing when and in what proportion – certain expenses of the Social Insurance Fund, will not be able to be financed due to the likely reduction of the budget subsidy – can make changes in the law in advance or rule the cases of Constitutional Court that will ensure that social insurance benefits are realized to the greatest extent possible, or counteract changes in the law that increase such risks.

In June 2025, the General Conference of the ILO will hold the first discussion on the issue of adopting a Convention or a Recommendation relating to platform work, and within this also on the issue of whether and how to regulate expressis verbis the right of the worker, including self-employed worker, to remove himself from danger to his life or health. Due to the fact that the platform branch constitutes one of the significant areas of the phenomenon of algorithmic management of work, in particular using artificial intelligence, the above travaux préparatoires of the ILO gives important incentive to consider the more general issue of whether and how an explicit right of the worker to remove himself from algorithmic danger is to be regulated by global, regional and national legislators.

EU law requires Member States to introduce dissuasive sanctions for breaches of the prohibition of discrimination in employment to their national legal systems. The Court of Justice of the European Union makes a clear distinction between the deterrent function of sanctions and their compensatory function. The analysis of its case law leads to the conclusion that the deterrent function implies the possibility of applying punitive measures in order to dissuade an employer from future infringements of the prohibition of discrimination. However, there are doubts as to whether the preventive objective can be achieved by means of compensatory measures, the main purpose of which is to provide protection for the employee. Despite the limitations related to the nature of these measures, the Supreme Court seeks the possibility of giving a deterrent character to the compensation provided for in Article 183d of the Labour Code, in so far as it is intended to compensate for the non-material damage suffered by the employee.

The aim of this article is to analyze the situation of combined entitlements to permanent allowance, social pension and selected benefit for carers, and to assess whether it is reasonable to maintain the principle of their non-combination, as currently legislated. The main thesis is that the aforementioned benefits do not duplicate each other in practice and that the regulations pertaining to the discussed issues do not keep up with changes in the legal system. It is necessary not only to update the regulations, but also to rethink the concept of non-combination of permanent allowance with benefits for carers.

In the presented article, the author considers the impact of declaring bankruptcy on the ability to dispose of and use the funds accumulated under Employee Capital Plans. In the introductory part there is a discussion of the institution and presentation of the most important legal solutions necessary for further consideration. Then the author refers to the legal norms contained in the bankruptcy law, in particular, concerning the property included in the bankruptcy estate, answering in the affirmative the question of whether the funds deposited within the framework of the PPK enter the bankruptcy estate. In the final part of the work, the author focuses on the practical elements of the presented issue, in particular, how to enforce and transfer the receivables in question to the bankruptcy estate. The presented matter, is increasingly encountered in the course of bankruptcy proceedings and becomes a practical problem at the stage of application of the law.

The paper presents the position of the Supreme Court on the issue of taxation of compensation for refraining from competitive activity due to a person who has performed work on the basis of a contract on the terms of mandate (contract on the terms of a mandate). The Supreme Court held that such compensation is not covered by the subjective exemption provided for in § 2(1)(4) of the Regulation on the Detailed Principles for Determining the Basis for Calculating Contributions to Pension and Disability Insurance. The article presents the main reasons for such a ruling.