Occupational health and safety regulations apply not only to employers, but also to employees. They are not imposed accidentally – they are intended to reduce the number of accidents in the workplace and occupational diseases.

Employees who consciously fail to comply with occupational health and safety regulations violate basic employee duties. Therefore, they must take into account the consequences. Penalties are listed in Art. 108-113 of the Labor Code.

The financial penalty is the highest in the hierarchy, is the most severe and may be imposed, among others, when an employee consumes alcohol or psychoactive substances at work, when he or she shows up at work intoxicated, when he or she leaves his or her position without justification or explanation, and when he or she fails to comply with the fire and health and safety regulations.

For failure to comply with health and safety regulations, the employer may also impose a reprimand or a warning (the mildest) against the employee. Likewise for failure to comply with the established work organization or the adopted method of confirming arrival and presence at the workplace.

Fines are not everything. For serious or repeated misconduct, the employer may dismiss a person with immediate disciplinary action. The decision on choosing the appropriate penalty is always made by the employer. Additionally, he does not have to follow the hierarchy of penalties, imposing first a warning, then a reprimand, then a financial penalty, and only then terminating the contract with disciplinary action.

The imposition of a disciplinary penalty on an employee must be documented in writing. The employer is obliged to prepare a copy of the notice of punishment, which is then placed in the employee’s personal file. If the employer failed to do all this and provided information about the reprimand orally, it could be treated simply as a comment.

If the employee behaves in an exemplary manner for the next year (i.e. he has not received any other disciplinary penalties), the copy is removed from his file and destroyed, and the reprimand is considered null and void.

Information about a reprimand or other disciplinary penalties imposed on an employee is not included in the employment certificate. This applies to both currently pending penalties and those considered null and void. However, the employment certificate contains information on the procedure for terminating the contract – so if the employee was dismissed on disciplinary grounds for his misconduct, without observing the notice period, the future employer will know about it.

We have already mentioned that the financial penalty is the most severe and is accompanied by many emotions. The amount of the penalty is not accidental, but determined by the provisions of the Code. and depends on the employee’s salary. Importantly, it cannot amount to more than one day’s remuneration of the employee, taking into account the net remuneration, after deduction of tax and mandatory contributions.

By law, the money paid must be used to improve occupational health and safety conditions. They cannot be used for any purpose, which is monitored by trade unions and the National Labor Inspectorate.

The financial penalty is not the withdrawal of bonuses. These are two completely different activities and should not be confused with each other. Moreover, most often such a bonus is a discretionary bonus, so its granting depends on the will of the employer. Therefore, if an employee violates health and safety regulations or other regulations mentioned above, the employer may not only impose a disciplinary penalty on him, but also not award a bonus.

A disciplinary penalty is imposed on employees by the employer. He may decide about it himself or when he receives an application submitted by the occupational health and safety services. They are entitled to submit this type of letter, but they are no longer authorized to prepare an appropriate document and forward it to the employee.

An employee may object to the imposition of a penalty if the penalty process was not carried out properly, for example when the employer imposed a penalty after 14 days from the moment it learned about the employee’s violation of the regulations or when it did not listen to the employee and only requested written explanations (provisions clearly state that a direct conversation is necessary).

The Labor Code also regulates the issues of objection and, according to it, an employee may raise an objection within 7 days from the date on which he or she received notice of the penalty.

Source:https://www.bhp-gabi.pl/a147,kary-za-nieprzestrzeganie-bhp-dla-pracownikow.html

Supported by Norway through Norway Grants 2014-2021, in the frame of the Programme “Social Dialogue – Decent Work”.