The Ministry of Labour Law is responsible for the transposition of PWD in Poland. The transposition includes a consultation process with social partners, which is ongoing.
During the consultation process, the employers’ organisations developed a proposal for the presumption of employment mechanism which include a criteria to trigger the presumption of employment which would be very hard to meet.
The proposal was for four criteria, and platform workers would have to meet all four criteria to trigger the presumption. The four criteria were:
- Lack of freedom to use a subcontractor or substitute
- Lack of freedom to accept or reject tasks
- Lack of freedom to provide services to more than one company
- Lack of freedom to determine the duration of service provision or the execution of orders
Trade unions have issued a joint statement rejecting this proposal and debate is ongoing through the social dialogue process.
There is also a debate about whether the transposition will lead to platform workers having employment contracts or continuing to have civil law contracts, which they work under currently.
The introduction of PWD will include legislation but potentially also changes to the labour code.
A big risk in the transposition process is that a criteria for triggering the presumption of employment is introduced which makes it hard for platform workers to access their rights.
Even when PWD is transposed, there is a risk that platforms will continue to come up with ways to circumvent the law and skip obligations relating to social security and health & safety.