The Polish Supreme Court has held that a criterion of discrimination may also be a relationship of a social or familial nature that exists in the workplace and whose existence or absence on the part of the employee results in different treatment by the employer.

The Polish national social insurance authority has no power to police ‘social dumping’. Neither is there any legal basis or justification for excluding workers performing work in other EU Member States from the national social insurance system based on an unverifiable assumption that social dumping is taking place.

The Polish Supreme Court has recently confirmed that the collective dismissal procedure should also cover cases where the employment relationship is terminated as a result of the termination of conditions of work or pay.

It is possible to make a claim for unlawful discrimination in respect of termination of an employment contract even if no claims has been made for unlawful termination.

Temporary agency workers employed by a Polish agency and posted temporarily to France to work there under the direction of a French client are entitled to A1 certificates and, therefore, to remain governed by exclusively Polish social security legislation while working in France.

The Supreme Court in this case establishes conditions to be met in order for the member of a Board of Directors to qualify as a self-employed “entrepreneur”. In light of these conditions, Directors must be considered to have the status of “individual contractor”, obligating them to pay increased social security contributions.

Paying employees acquired by way of the transfer of an undertaking less than the transferee’s original staff not discriminatory. The Supreme Court recently came to this conclusion based on a rather daring interpretation of a provision of national law aimed at transposing an EU directive. Although Polish law obligates employers to treat employees who perform the same work equally regardless of personal characteristics, the provision at issue should be read more narrowly.