ANALYSIS OF THE PROCEDURAL STATUS OF A PERSON PROVIDING PAID WORK UNDER A CIVIL LAW CONTRACT IN EMPLOYMENT LAW CASES

Abstract

The amendment of the Trade Union Act by the Act of 5 July 2018 amending the Trade Union Act and certain other acts (Journal of Laws, item 1608), which entered into force on 1 January 2019, redefined the essence of collective labour law. Pursuant to the aforementioned amendment, the legislator introduced into the legal system the institution of a “ person who performs paid work”, which includes both an employee within the meaning of Article 2 of the Labour Code and a person providing work for remuneration on a basis other than employment relationship (so-called non-employee). The analysis of the introduced provisions leads to the conclusion that the legislator focused on providing non-employees with substantive legal rights, such as, among others, the right of union coalition. However, in my opinion, the legislator neglected analogous scrupulosity in the area of procedural rights of non-employees, which led to a situation in which non-employees are partially entitled to the same substantive rights as employees, but do not have analogous procedural rights. In my view, this constitutes a flagrant omission on the part of the legislator which, as a consequence, leads to legal uncertainty and a lack of effectiveness of the protection introduced for non-employees.