On 21 November 2013, the new Polish act on special solutions related to workplace protection will come into force (the so-called "new anticrisis act", hereafter "Act"). The main purpose of the Act is to provide financial aid to those employers whose conditions of conducting business activity have temporarily deteriorated in order to protect the workplaces of the employees.

Forms of counteracting employment reduction

The Act envisages that an employer is allowed to introduce economic stoppage or reduce its employees' working time in case of temporary economic difficulties. An economic stoppage is defined as a period of non-performance of work by an employee due to reasons not related to the employee, who remains ready to work. In contrast, the reduction of working time consists of the employer's decreasing an employee's working time - yet not by more than half of that working time - due to reasons not related to the employee.

Both economic stoppage and working time reduction cannot be introduced unilaterally by the employer. The Act requires the employer to conclude an agreement with trade unions or, when there are no such unions, with employee representatives.

In such agreement, the parties must determine: professional groups covered by the economic stoppage or reduced working time, the reduced working time binding for the employees, and the period of time during which the economic stoppage or reduced working time shall be in force.

Forms of financial aid

Financial aid for which the employer can apply covers:

  • surcharge to the dismissal-threatened employees' remuneration in the period of economic stoppage,
  • surcharge to the employees' remuneration on account of reduced working time,
  • benefit for the payment of social insurance contributions of employees covered by economic stoppage or reduced working time.

In case of economic stoppage and working time reduction, an employee is entitled to remuneration amounting to at least the minimum monthly wage (currently EUR 400), which will be co-financed from funds from the employer and from the Guaranteed Employee Benefits Fund. The financial aid may be granted for the maximum period of 6 months.

Conditions

The Act provides for the following conditions that should be met by an employer applying for additional subsidy:

  • a drop in economic turnover, which should be understood as sales of goods or services, jointly not less than 15%, calculated for the period of 6 consecutive months during the term of 12 months preceding the day of submitting an application for granting allowance for protection of workplaces in comparison with the turnover from the analogical period of 6 months of the previous year,
  • lack of arrears with tax payments, social insurance contributions or other public receivables (unless there are exceptions provided for in the Act),
  • lack of grounds for bankruptcy against an employer.

Procedure

In order to obtain financial aid, the employer files an application together with the documentation to the Voivodship marshal relevant for the company's seat. Subsequently, after concluding an agreement on payment of benefits and presenting a list of entitled employees, funds from the Guaranteed Employee Benefits Fund are transferred every month separately to the employer's bank account.

The employers covered by the aid are obliged to account for received financial means, i.e. to prove payments made to the benefit of employees and Social Insurance Institution. Moreover, the Voivodship marshal is obliged to carry out an inspection as regards the correctness of funds management. In case of e.g. failure to make payments to the benefit of employees or the dissolution of an employment contract, the employer shall be obliged to return the financial aid they had received.

Costs of training

The Act also envisages an opportunity to obtain additional financing for training employees covered by economic stoppage or reduced working time and receiving benefits on that account. The sole condition is to justify the training by the employer's present or future needs. Additional financing is provided by the Labour Fund and may amount to 80% of training costs; however the maximum amount is 300% of average monthly wages, i.e. currently EUR 2,750.

Protection of employees

If an employer was using the above-mentioned forms of financial aid, it has no right to dissolve the employment contract as a consequence of termination due to reasons not related to the employee during a period of using of that aid, as well as within 3 months from the end of that period.

Validity period

Agreements on payment of benefits and agreements on additional financing of trainings may be concluded until 30 June 2014.

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.