What was the subject of the meeting of the Social Dialogue Development Team in January 2022?
The problems of the National Revenue Administration, discussion of the current activities of the Voivodship Social Dialogue Councils of the following provinces: Dolnośląskie, Łódzkie, Świętokrzyskie and Lubelskie and keeping a list of mediators at the Minister of Family and Social Policy are, among others, the topics of the meeting of the team for the development of social dialogue. The meeting took place on January 18, 2022 in a hybrid form. The government was represented in the meeting by Stanisław Szwed – Secretary of State in the Ministry of Family and Social Policy.
Tomasz Ludwiński – Chairman of the sub-team for the National Tax Administration discussed the problems faced by the National Revenue Administration (KAS). He drew attention to the difficulties associated with the flow of information between management and employees. He informed about the lack of raising basic salaries for KAS officers and the suspension of awards and salary supplements for trade union activists. He mentioned the lack of consultations on some changes that affect the working conditions of KAS officers and pointed to too short deadlines for giving opinions on draft legal acts.
The issues of the functioning of the KAS sub-team and its tasks were also raised.
In the further part, Deputy Minister Stanisław Szwed presented information on the list of mediators at the Minister of Family and Social Policy. He drew attention to the difficulties in obtaining the opinion of representative organisations of the social partners on applications for inclusion in the list of mediators. In the years 2019-2021, 39 applications for entry on the list of mediators addressed to the minister responsible for labour were sent for opinion by social partner organisations, of which only 4 received a positive opinion from all authorised social partner organisations. In addition, the Deputy Minister informed about the current state of work on the draft of the new act on the resolution of collective disputes – the draft has been submitted to the entry into the legislative work plan of the Council of Ministers and is awaiting entry. The next stage after obtaining the entry will be inter-ministerial consultations and social opinions on the project.
Another discussed point was the information of representatives of the WRDS of the following voivodships: Dolnośląskie, Łódzkie, Świętokrzyskie and Lubelskie regarding their activities in 2021. Representatives of individual WRDSs familiarized the participants of the meeting with the topics discussed during the meetings, among which was the issue of the current epidemiological situation in connection with the spread of COVID-19 and the actions taken.
Ms. Edyta Doboszyńska representing the Polish Craft Association presented information summarizing the work of experts of social partner organizations in 2021 and arrangements for the implementation of the European agreement on digitization. She informed about the proposals of the areas, which were then recommended for discussion within the problem teams of the Social Dialogue Council. Among the areas she mentioned m.in: digitalization of applications and statements in labor law; strengthening the digital competences of the working population; analysis of the current situation regarding the use of algorithms in the work environment.
It was agreed that the developed recommendations would be forwarded to the Presidium of the RDS.
Barbara Surdykowska NSZZ „Solidarność” presented a brief information on the progress of work on the planned directive on minimum wages and promotion of collective bargaining. He informed that the European Commission has presented a proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on adequate minimum wages in the European Union. She pointed out that in the proposed directive, the provisions of Article 4 on the desire to cover a certain number of employees in collective agreements and Article 10 on the reporting obligation raise doubts m.in.
Thus, it asked the members of the team to consider the possibility of developing solutions in these two questionable areas (Articles 4 and 10) of the proposed directive.
Referring to the above issue, Deputy Minister Stanisław Szwed informed that the Slovenian Presidency organized one meeting of the Social Working Group in December 2021, during which the Member States presented a preliminary position on the European Parliament’s amendments to the draft directive. He stressed that Parliament’s position goes beyond the framework of the agreement adopted by the Council and most countries, including Poland, appealed to the French Presidency to take into account in the negotiation process with the European Parliament as much as possible the compromise solutions developed in the EU Council.
At the end of the meeting, Marek Waleśkiewicz – Director of the Department of Dialogue and Social Partnership presented information on the current activities of Tripartite Industry Teams.
Projekt otrzymał dofinansowanie z Norwegii poprzez Fundusze Norweskie 2014-2021, w ramach programu „Dialog społeczny – godna praca”.
