Greater effectiveness during inspections of legality of employment

The new Act on National Labour Inspectorate, which has been in force since 1 July 2007, has considerably broadened the range of our inspection’s tasks and powers, among others by inspection of compliance with the provisions on legality of employment. On 5 February 2008 at the Chief Labour Inspectorate journalists were informed about the effects of NLI’s activity in this area.

– Today’s meeting is the first one during which we wish to deliver information on implementation of the new tasks by Polish labour inspection. It is somehow a symbolic confirmation of our presence among Community labour inspections, where inspection of legality of employment has been among inspectors’ duties for a long time – said Bożena Borys-Szopa, Chief Labour Inspector.

She reminded the audience that in the past some elements related to the form of employment of workers had also fallen with the NLI’s remit. Each year, thanks to the efforts of labour inspectors, several thousand individuals engaged in work on the basis of civil-law contracts or without any contract at all, obtained a written confirmation that they conclude an employment contract. Yet, NLI has never before comprehensively supervised this sphere of our labour market which is so complex and especially difficult to inspect.

Bożena Borys-Szopa informed the journalists that last year labour inspectors carried out over 12 thousand inspections of legality of employment, including almost 770 visits which focused on performance of work by foreigners. During such inspections, inspectors also eliminated other identified irregularities, both in the sphere of legal protection of labour and technical work safety.

While speaking about entrusting the labour inspection with tasks in the area of inspection of legality of employment, which had before been implemented by relevant services of provincial authorities, Chairman of Labour Protection Council – MP Stanisław Szwed indicated that the first results of NLI’s activity in this field confirm rightness of the decision taken by the law-maker. He emphasised large effectiveness of inspection procedures which have been developed and implemented by the labour inspection. He stated that in the discussed half of the year effectiveness of inspecting legality of employment had risen by 64 percent – when one considers both an increase in the number of carried out inspections, and their results, that is the number of concluded employment contracts, issued declarations, paid insurance contributions etc. It is important and advantageous for proper functioning of the labour market. In this context the Chairman of Labour Protection Council expressed the hope that such a situation as two years before would never occur again; the situation when there were provinces in which only one inspection of legality of employment was conducted. The law-maker’s decision on entrusting inspection of legality of employment to one office was also positive from the point of view of expectations of employers as regards limiting the number of inspecting authorities.

Major irregularities identified by NLI’s inspectors during visits were presented by Deputy Chief Labour Inspector Roman Giedrojć. These comprised: lack of declarations whether the employed individuals remained or not in the register of unemployed persons looking for a job, failure to inform county employment offices about the employment of an unemployed person or entrusting other paid work to such a person, unemployed persons’ failure to inform county employment offices about commencement of employment, delayed registering of employees with social insurance, non-payment of contributions to the Labour Fund, illegal work and illegal employment of foreigners. Legality of employment of more than 100 thousand persons, including almost 3.5 thousand foreigners, was inspected. Inspections related to the payment of contributions to the Labour Fund covered over 200 thousand individuals.

In order to eliminate the identified pathologies, labour inspectors issued almost 6.5 thousand improvement letters to employers, which comprised 11.7 thousand recommendations related to 95 thousand individuals. They also disclosed almost 4 thousand offences against employee rights; those offences belonged to the sphere of legality of employment. NLI inspectors imposed 358 fines and lodged 1689 applications with municipal courts asking for penalising individuals guilty of said offences.

– Thanks to interventions of labour inspectors – underlined Roman Giedrojć – 12 million zlotys was paid to the Social Insurance Institution, and inspectors enforced the payment of 6.2 million zlotys to the Labour Fund.

MP Stanisław Szwed said during the meeting with employers that according to estimates, between 25 and 30 percent of Polish people work in the “grey zone”. Activities carried out by the labour inspection well serve to limit this pathology. Effects of labour inspectors’ work, achieved in such a short period, have already induced the improvement of social safety and working conditions of a great many individuals, guarantee of old-age and disability pensions for the future, limitation of “grey” and “black” economy, and measurable benefits to the state budget.

The conference was also attended by Director of Legality of Employment Department Jarosław Leśniewski.