Every country in the world has worker protection laws designed to prevent employees from coming to harm at work or at the hands of their employer. Employers who want to hire people in Poland need to have a solid understanding of the worker protection rules that apply there so that they can both look after their employees’ interests and ensure they’re compliant with the relevant laws and regulations.
In this section, we’ll discuss the rules for whistleblowing in Poland, including how the law protects whistleblowers from retaliation on the part of their employers. We’ll also dive into how the GDPR applies to employers in Poland, and how employers can protect their employees’ personal data. Lastly, we’ll discuss the right to equal treatment for temporary agency workers in Poland, and how anti-discrimination and pay equity laws ensure all employees are treated fairly.
Whistleblowers play an important role in calling out wrongdoing in their workplaces to protect common interests. For this reason, many countries in the world have specific whistleblowing laws in place to protect those who come forward about wrongdoing from retaliation.
In 2019, the EU passed a Directive on Whistleblowing, which required member states to put in place effective measures to protect whistleblowers. Poland was the last of the EU’s 27 member states to implement the Directive. The country adopted a new whistleblowing law in June 2024.
The Polish parliament adopted the Act on the Protection of Whistleblowers on 14 June 2024. It will come into effect from September 2024. According to the Polish government, the Act serves three main objectives:
Under the new whistleblower law in Poland, all employers with more than 50 employees must establish internal reporting procedures that set out the rules for whistleblowing and create channels for receiving reports of wrongdoing. Whistleblowers in Poland will also be protected from retaliation and will be able to seek compensation if their whistleblowing leads to:
Poland’s whistleblowing law applies to all employees, former employees, officers, professional soldiers, contractors, trainees, or volunteers who disclose wrongdoing or violations of the law in their workplace. Whistleblowers are different from normal complainants, as their disclosure is in the public good. This means that employees reporting interpersonal issues would not be counted as whistleblowers or protected by the Whistleblowing Directive.
Employers in Poland are legally required to respect their employees’ dignity, privacy, and confidentiality. The rules about processing the personal data of employees and job candidates are set out in the Polish Labour Code and the Data Protection Act, which is Poland’s interpretation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Employers in Poland must collect certain personal data about employees and job candidates. This is allowed under Poland’s data protection laws because it is required for the employment contract. Specifically, the Polish Labour Code specifies that employers must collect the following information from job candidates during the recruitment process:
If it is required to perform the work in question, they may also collect information about the candidate’s education, qualifications, and employment history.
Once an employee is hired, the employer can then ask for further information:
Employers in Poland may also collect and process other data about their employees if they have the consent of the data subjects. However, consent is not enough to justify processing data related to criminal convictions and offences in Poland. Polish employees may only collect this data if it’s necessary to comply with a legal obligation (e.g. when hiring for certain sensitive positions like those in finance, education, or healthcare).
If an employee doesn’t consent to their data being processed (or gives consent and then withdraws it), this can’t be used as a reason to treat the candidate less favourably. For example, an employee can’t refuse employment or terminate an employee’s employment contract because they withdrew consent for data processing.
The main piece of legislation that impacts employee data privacy in Poland is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The GDPR is an EU law that sets minimum requirements for data protection across Europe. Polish employers can ensure compliance with the GDPR by:
Poland’s data privacy laws provide specific rules about the monitoring and surveillance of employees, including CCTV and email monitoring.
Specifically, employers can only use CCTV in the workplace to ensure employee safety, protection of property, production control, or confidentiality of information. They are not allowed to monitor areas where work doesn’t take place, such as toilets, cloakrooms, canteens, or smoking areas. Employers may only use CCTV recordings for their intended purpose and must inform employees at least two weeks before they set up CCTV cameras. The areas or rooms that are monitored by CCTV must also be marked.
The monitoring of employees’ professional email accounts is allowed if it’s necessary to ensure work is organised effectively or to ensure the proper use of work tools. However, Polish employers must not violate their employees’ confidentiality of correspondence or other personal rights.
Temporary agency workers are workers hired through labour agencies to meet short-term needs. These workers are employees of the agency and are effectively loaned out to client companies. Different countries have their own rules on how employers may use temporary agency workers, and how they should be treated.
The rules about hiring temporary agency workers in Poland are set out in the Act of 9 July 2003 on the employment of temporary agency workers. This law sets certain requirements for both temporary work agencies and the businesses that use them.
For example, temporary work agencies operating in Poland must:
Employers that hire workers through temporary work agencies in Poland must:
Under Poland’s laws on the employment of temporary agency workers, these workers can’t be treated less favourably in terms of working conditions and other conditions of employment than permanent employees in the same or similar positions. If a temporary agency worker is treated less favourably than an equivalent permanent employee, they can seek compensation from the temporary work agency that employs them. The user employer must then reimburse the agency for the cost of this compensation.
Employers in Poland may not treat employees or groups of employees less favourably than others based on protected characteristics like their sex, age, or ability. Discrimination might include refusing to hire someone, refusing them a promotion, or paying them less than colleagues in the same role.
While there is a set list of characteristics that are explicitly protected by law, the catalogue of protected characteristics in Poland is open, and case law may also provide for other characteristics to be considered protected.
Poland’s anti-discrimination laws specifically ban discrimination on the basis of:
Poland’s anti-discrimination laws protect employees from:
If an employee is discriminated against by their employer in Poland, they can resign from their job without notice, because their employer has breached the equal treatment principle. They can also claim compensation from their former employer in an amount not lower than the national minimum wage. If an employer repeatedly violates equal treatment rules, they could face a criminal penalty, up to and including a prison sentence of up to two years.
While the rules set out in the Labour Code only apply to employees, there is a separate act on equal treatment for freelancers and independent contractors. If a freelancer or independent contractor is discriminated against in Poland, they can also claim compensation from their employer.
Pay equity means paying employees who do the same or substantially similar work the same amount regardless of their sex. Although this is a fundamental right under EU law, many countries in Europe still have a gender pay gap, which means that women are paid less than men on average. Pay equity laws are set up to protect employees from pay discrimination and to narrow that pay gap over time.
In Poland, the Labour Code guarantees employees the right to equal remuneration for work of ‘equal value’. This means that employees must be paid the same as colleagues doing the same job, as well as those in jobs that are substantially similar.
The Labour Code defines remuneration as including all elements of compensation, not just base salary. That means that an employer who paid everyone the same base salary but awarded larger bonuses to male employees could be breaking Poland’s equal pay laws if they were not able to justify the difference using objective criteria.
In cases of supposed pay discrimination in Poland, the principle of reversal of the burden of proof applies. This means that the employee only has to prove the material facts of the case (i.e. that they were paid less than someone else). They don’t have to prove that this was due to discrimination. Instead, the employer must prove that this was not the case.
If an employer is found to have infringed the principle of equal treatment, employees are entitled to compensation of no less than the minimum wage. The employer is also not allowed to treat that employee less favourably than others because they have made an equal pay claim. For example, they can’t terminate the employee’s contract just because they have exercised their right to equal pay.
In 2023, the EU Parliament and Council adopted a new directive on pay transparency, which all member states have to implement by June 2026. This directive introduces new rules on how companies handle pay and gives both employees and candidates more rights to information about their compensation.
For example, all employers with more than 150 employees will have to report regularly on their gender pay gap. Employers will also have to provide job candidates with at least a starting salary range for each position before the information stage, and employees will be able to request certain information about their pay and how it compares to others in similar roles.
Understanding what you can and can’t do as an employer is one of the biggest challenges of hiring in Poland. Get it wrong, and you could face legal action and damage to your reputation.
Our solutions protect both you and your workers, thanks to our team’s in-depth knowledge of local and international labour laws. That means you can stop worrying about compliance issues and focus on getting the job done.
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