Labour and Social Security Journal 4/2020

The spreading COVID-19 pandemic is a serious blow to the global economy, including the relatively stable socio-economic structures of developed capitalism. The paper presents the first reactions of institutions and social partners. The authors point out that the pandemic crisis may lead to the fundamental transformation of the world of work as we know it today. In describing the vision of the world of  work after the pandemic, 4 questions asked in the paper may be helpful, regarding: the future of globalization, changes in the work environment, the need to provide social security in a wider scope, and social changes in assessing the value of jobs.

The aim of the paper it to analyze the issues connectedwith the intergenerational justice and the states of financial balance. One of the important elements which decidingabout states' tasks is the balance of the financial sector. The principle of acquired rights protection guarantees the specified level of the retirement. On the other hand, in practice, because of the demographic, economic and financial factors, the troubles may appear in paying retirements in original amount. It may lead to the change of the previous methods of calculating it.

This article deals with the problems related to protection of board members in case of the insolvency of their employer. The possibility of employing management board members of companies on the basis of employment relationship, grounded in Polish labour law, implies their protection in the event of the insolvency of the employer. Under the current legislation, members of management boards who are employees (or employed on the base of civil contract) are treated in the same way as all other employees. The Act does not recognize their special status — the impact they could have on rising insolvency of the company, greater opportunities for selfprotection of their interests and the ability to influence their employee status. This raises the risk of taking advantage of their particular position and potential abuses. It is particularly visible in the case of management board members who are also the company's majority shareholders. The author wonders how the legislator may take into account the special status of board members in the Act on the protection of employees claims in case of insolvency of the employer, in particular in terms of preventing potential abuses.

Blockchain technology has many potential applications (for example land registers). Yet, most common and the most widespread basic usages are cryptocurrencies — bitcoin is based on this system. The abovementioned cryptocurrency is slowly impacting a change in the scope of the financial system functioning rules. Bitcoin is already used in commercial online transactions, money transfers (due to the extremely low costs of transferring significant sums) and as an investment asset. Interest in the cryptocurrency usage seems to be growing. It is true that for the time being this phenomenon is rather marginal and concerns mainly entities from the fintech industry, however, it should be emphasized that there are already employers in the world, who pay salary in cryptocurrencies (only in cryptocurrencies or by offering employees the choice between fiat currency and cryptocurrencies). The article presents the analysis of the admissibility of such practice in the Polish legal system.

The article is devoted to the issue of a misdemeanour in Article 98 of the Polish Act on the social insurance system. The author presents the genesis of this legal regulation, and then proceeds to justify the thesis about the need to transform this offense into a crime. In this regard, account is primarily taken of the fact that the fiscal interest of the State is protected both in tax law and under fiscal criminal law. On the other hand, protection of the interests of the Social Insurance Institution and the insured, including the social insurance system in the area of criminal law does not seem to be consistent with the law protection of taxes. In addition, specific changes to the provision of Article 98 of the Polish Act on the social insurance system are presented, which are to improve the prosecution of perpetrators of acts described under this regulation.

The Court of Justice of the EU on 26 March 2020 issued a judgement in case C-344/18, ISS Facility Services NV vs. Sonia Govaerts, Atalian NV. The Court analysed the issue of the safeguarding of employees' rights in the situation of a transfer of an undertaking involving a number of transferees.

The author presents the latest view of the Polish Supreme Court with regard to being subject to compulsory social insurance by a person who, being completely incapacitated, is employed under the conditions set out  in Article 22 § 1 of the Labour Code.