From the 18 of June of this year, the provisions of the Act of the 10 of June 2016 on posting of workers in the provision of services (Journal of Laws 2016. pos. 868 - hereafter referred to as the "Act"), imposing on foreign employers new obligations related to the posting of workers on the Polish territory, apply.

The Act implements directive 96/71 /EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of the 16 of December 1996 concerning the posting of workers in the provision of services and directive of the European Parliament and of the Council 2014/67/EU of the 15 of May 2014 on the enforcement of directive 96 /71/EC, amending EU regulation no. 1024/2012 on administrative cooperation through the information exchange system within the internal market (Official Journal EU L159 of 28.05.2014).

Provisions relating to the conditions of employment of workers posted to work in Poland were, until now, contained in the Labour Code (Chapter IIa. The conditions of employment of workers from the European Union member country posted to work on the Polish territory). That legislation defined the obligation to ensure the posted workers have no less than the minimum favourable employment conditions than those resulting from the Polish law and exceptions to this obligation. From the 18 of June of this year those provisions of the Labour Code have been replaced by the provisions of the Act.

The obligation to ensure the minimum conditions for the workers posted to the territory of Poland did not change, while the definition of a posting and exceptions in this regard were significantly clarified.

Above all, however, the Act imposed on employers new obligations to allow monitoring of their compliance with the rules on the posting of workers, including the obligation to provide employees with minimum conditions of employment. Inspections are carried out by the National Labour Inspectorate, which gained new rights and responsibilities under both the monitoring of compliance with the law by employers on the Polish territory, as well as administrative co-operation with similar institutions in other EU countries. The Act also defines new types of offenses, punishable by a fine of 1,000 to 30,000 PLN.

A detailed overview of all the changes introduced by the Act is beyond the scope of this article, and will be limited to the definition of posting, indication of minimum conditions of employment and the new responsibilities of foreign employers who post workers to Poland.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.