Labour and Social Security Journal 2/2020

The new Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of persons reporting on breaches of Union law introduces new EU-wide rules on the protection of whistleblowers in the workplace. The Directive requires Member States to develop and adopt harmonised rules on how to receive report, carry out an enquiry, and provide legal protection of whistleblowers. It also makes it necessary to implement anonymous reporting channels, inform the whistleblower of the actions taken as follow up to the report, and provide for a timeframe of 3 months to make a decision on the inquiry. In addition, the Directive specifies the obligation to protect the personal data of all participants in the enquiry. The new Directive prohibits any retaliatory measures against whistleblowers and requires the adoption of effective and adequate measures to protect them. It ensures a wide personal scope of the protection of whistleblowers and a broad range of remedies by which this protection is implemented.

The paper discusses the rulings of the CJEU: Egenberger, IR v JQ, Bauer and Max Planck, in which the Court pointed to the direct application of Articles: 21, 31 para. 2 and 47 EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The author draws attention to the limited significance of this jurisprudence line due to the maintenance of the arguments contained in the AMS ruling, indicating that where there is a reference to "national law and practices" in the Charter's record, such a record makes it impossible to apply the Charter directly. The effect of the case-law pointing to the direct application of the Charter also depends on the number and quality of the questions referred for a preliminary ruling by the courts from a given country.

The meditations included in this article are dedicated tocontractual liability of a member of the board of an incorporated (limited) company in reference to the introducing into the managerial contract a clause, according to which the manager is liable towards third persons for damages resulting form non-performance or ill performance of the duties under such contract. In the author's opinion, the aforementioned clause in a managerial contract does not cause that the managermember of the board assumes liability towards third persons, and not the company. Such clause in question does not lead to releasing a company from liability towards third persons and transferring the liability onto the manager-member of the board of the company.

The subject of the article is the issue of employing a programmer in the form of telework, which due to its inter-branch nature, should be interpreted considering both labour law and copyright law. With respect to the specifics of creative work and the ability to performing it at a distance, the author is analyzing teleworking, futher exploring: time and place of telework, its' regularity of provision and relation of superiority of the employer and subordination of the employee in the light of the computer programmers work. There are also being made considerations about the using equipment, which is necessary to provide work and related with its legal problems in the field of payment of the equivalent. Autor tries to show occurring problematic spheres during the provision of telework by a programmer, indicating their possible practical solutions.

The article deals with the issue of exceeding the maximum duration of temporary agency work. The text analyses the Polish Supreme Court's jurisprudence with regard to the purpose of Article 20 of the Act of 9 July 2003 on the Employment of Temporary Agency Workers and the implicit establishment of an employment relationship between the user employer and a temporary agency worker in the context of the model of temporary agency work that is in force in Poland.

The Court of Justice of the EU on 7 November 2019 issued a judgement in case C-396/18, Gennaro Cafaro vs. DQ, concerning the issue of discrimination on grounds of age in the context of Italian legislation, according to which pilots may carry on their professional activities until they reach the age of 60.

The author refers broadly to the case-law, including the latest judicature of the Polish Supreme Court regarding the interpretation of the term 'basic employee duty' within the meaning of Article 52 para. 1 point 1 of the Labour Code.

Przegląd Dzienników Ustaw za 2020 r. od poz. 1 do poz. 150