When the European Commission transferred Poland on 17 December 2024, following the fulfilment of alleged milestones, mainly linked to the improvement of the judiciary – "frozen" against the Government of the United Right since June 2022 – the funds of the second and 3rd tranches of the KPO, on 29 January 2025 the coalition government adopted a resolution on the revision of the National Recovery and Enhancement of opposition Plan, submitted by the Minister of Funds and Regional Policy Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz. While the resolution is not publically available, the Communication after government deliberations states that changes are being made to the improvement of the "reduction of labour marketplace segmentation". Among the proposed alternate solutions to replace contract placement was a improvement which was intended to guarantee effective conversion of apparent civil-law contracts into employment contracts. A akin communication was issued by the Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy. It states, among another things, that the Tusk government decided to “resign from the collection of civilian contracts (except for work contracts and students up to the age of 26). The proposed alternate solutions include the following reforms:
– ensuring the effective transformation of apparent civilian law contracts into employment contracts, expanding the efficiency of the State Labour Inspection activities;
– a Labour Code, providing for more favourable rules for the calculation of the work experience of employees employed in the past under civilian law contracts;
– on the social safety of artistic professionals through adequate inclusion of artists in the social and wellness insurance system.
The resolution adopted by the Government gives the Minister the mandate of the Funds and Regional Policy to conduct authoritative negotiations with the European Commission. A formal request for revision of the KPO will be sent to the EC before 31 January" 2025.
According to Business Insider Polska, Deputy Minister Jan Szyszko, who was liable for European funds in MFiPR, negotiated with the European Commission the replacement of contract-orders with 2 reforms: PIP and internship.
The revision of the KPO approved by the European Commission and the Council of the EU in June 2025 was much more detailed than in the Government's resolution of 29 January that year. In the dispute, the question was to "give the State Labour Inspectorate the power to issue administrative decisions that turn incorrect civilian contracts into employment contracts". Following these negotiations, the entry into force of the improvement of the State Labour Inspectorate and the amendment of the Labour Code was introduced as a milestone. As qualitative indicators (for milestones) it is written: "a provision in legislative acts indicating the entry into force of these reforms". The 4th 4th of 2025 was adopted as an indicative timetable for the completion of this action. In the description of the milestone and each mark value, he explained: "The entry into force of a package of laws or amendments to existing legislative acts, which supply for: 1) giving the State Labour Inspectorate powers to issue administrative decisions replacing incorrect civilian law contracts in employment contracts; 2) enabling the exchange of data between the State Labour Inspectorate, the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) and the National taxation Administration (KAS) for labour inspection purposes; 3) the anticipation for the State Labour Inspection to carry out distant checks; 4) requiring the State Labour Inspectorate to prepare yearly and long-term action plans for targeted checks based on hazard analysis; 5. at least double the maximum amount of fines which the State Labour Inspectorate may impose in mandate proceedings; (6) designation of professional experience gained on the basis of civilian law contracts as a work experience governed by the Labour Code.’
All of this can inactive be read on page 62 of the authoritative Note of the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU No. 9590/25 ADD1, referred to as ‘Annex to the Council Implementing Decision amending the Implementing Decision of 17 June 2022 on the approval of the assessment of the reconstruction and strengthening of Poland’ (signed by the Government of Mateusz Morawiecki).
Already on 10 April 2025 Minister Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk from Nowa Lewica – in connection with the resolution of the Council of Ministers on the amendment of the National Reconstruction Plan – established a squad in the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy, whose task was to prepare in accordance with 1 of the "milestones" of the KPO legal solutions for the improvement of the State Labour Inspection. That is: to make legislative initiatives to increase the efficiency of the tasks put before the State Labour Inspectorate and to present solutions that increase the social protection of workers on the basis of civilian law contracts. It included: Liwiusz Laska – manager General at the Ministry of Labour, Jakub Szmit – manager at the Department of Labour Law and Tomasz Wlazło, manager at the Legal Department, as well as representatives of the Legal Department, the Office of the Minister, the Department of Labour marketplace and the Department of economical Analysis. No typical of the State Labour Inspection has entered the Team.
While the State Labour Inspection under force from the milestone of the European Union National Reconstruction Plan and the pace imposed by the MRPiPS is only preparing for reform, the Social Insurance Institution is already increasingly and more effectively controlling B2B agreements. According to “Gazeta Wyborcza”, entrepreneurs who “optimized” contributions for years owe employees – according to the ZUS calculations – only for the year 2024 “more than PLN 26 billion of the interest on late contributions. Moreover, in the case of as many as 93 percent of checks, it detected irregularities".
According to Grant Thornton's latest report, over the past 5 years the number of inspections by the Social Insurance Institution has "increased from around 12,000 to almost 30,000 per year (the average yearly increase is 25 percent). [...] ZUS performs controls not only through itself the inspection of documents, but besides uses historical data, analytics and predictive models. The pension body looks at the payers' records, comparing premiums declarations, insurance applications, activities of related entities and even medical decisions.’
Meanwhile, media and social networks – following critical opinions against the MPPiPS task by government ministries and employers' organisations – focused on PIP attacks for attempting to introduce labour inspector powers to find whether a given contract is simply a occupation contract. specified attacks on the MRPiPS-promoted task records intensified at the turn of November and December 2025. erstwhile Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said: “Do you know the head of the State Labour Inspection appointed by Donald Tusk? Look what he's saying. In a moment, this man and his subordinates will decide whether any B2B agreement is to be converted into a contract of employment. They'll have full freedom. And if they do, they can charge interest 3 years back. Horror. Let's halt this together."
It is worth remembering who agreed to the alleged KPO milestones. Isn't that Mr. Matthew?
On 4 December 2025, the bill amending the PIP Act was approved by the Standing Committee of the Council of Ministers. In the next step, he was to attend the Council of Ministers. Its adoption would mean that the regulation would be addressed to the Sejm. On the X portal, Minister Marek Berka wrote: “The Standing Committee of the Council of Ministers examined the draft Act on State Labour Inspection. [...] What crucial changes to the task did SKRM adopt? If the PIP inspector finds a condition which he considers to be illegal, the first mandatory step will be to order him to bring the state of the organization to the law. The parties shall then find whether they want to conclude a contract of employment or whether they will benefit from the anticipation of correcting their binding civilian relations. If the inspector accepts the solution adopted by the parties, the investigation shall be terminated. If he does not accept, he can then make a decision. This decision has consequences for the future, i.e. from the date of the decision. There is 1 exception that concerns the protection of the fact of employment of the individual who is an worker – here the protection will work from the beginning of the audit. The decision is only feasible if it is final, on general principles, i.e. erstwhile it cannot be appealed, we do not introduce a mode another than that provided for in Kpa. Alternatively to the way based on an administrative decision, the inspector could mention the case to court, for example if he considers that the effects of the decision should be retroactive. PIP will besides be given the right to give interpretations that will defend employers from possible occupation errors. [...] it is worth reminding: thanks to the actions of the government, as part of the revision of the KPO, we have resigned from the mandatory cover-up of all civil-law contracts (contracts, work contracts). We have replaced this by strengthening the competence of the State Labour Inspection to effectively enforce labour law. The implementation of the full improvement should be completed by 30 June 2026."
On 4 December, a conference organised by the PSL Parliamentary Club and representatives of the most crucial employers' and entrepreneurs' organisations, which expressed strong opposition to the draft amendments to the Act on State Labour Inspection, was held in the Sejm. At the PSL policy conference, Marek Sawicki said: “Together with the 9 most crucial employers' organisations, we are opposed to the powerfully damaging solutions that are planned in the State Labour Inspection. These are solutions that reconcile and weaken the pillar of the Polish economy and development". Business Centre Club was represented by the president of the BCC Association of Entrepreneurs, Łukasz Bernatowicz, who said: “We cannot agree to regulations that severely undermine the balance between the control body and the entrepreneur. We request a sound public consultation and consideration of the demands of our environment." The BCC expressed clear opposition to continuing to proceed with the draft law in its current form, although it announced further steps towards dialog in the legislative process. Similarly, the Association of Entrepreneurs and Employers assessed the task as besides profoundly interfering in the freedom to conduct business.
Paweł Łossowski, president of the always Group, in an interview “Chaos around changes in PIP. “Sorry, are they beating here?” on Money.pl explained how specified confusion with the bill occurred. "I have taken the problem of reaching the milestones at its foundations. 1 is called "to combat labour marketplace segmentation", which is to reduce contracts concluded with employees and coworkers in a way that ignores full abandonment. If civilian law contracts are not full covered on the market, pension exclusion occurs. This is the key word that is not mentioned, due to the fact that more and more people in Poland, reaching retirement age, abruptly discovers that most of their working life worked on uncommitted contracts. A giant social problem is being created, and there is besides a demographic crisis. So the initiative was right, and the thought was to equalize people's chances of retirement. But in practice, there was a legal monster. The milestone in the first version afraid the nullification of all civilian law contracts, that is, strategy operation, equal to all, in my opinion very good. On the another hand, it is not known for what reasons it ended with the fact that “to combat labour marketplace segmentation” has changed to “to increase PIP competence”. And we have a very controversial solution." Interviewer Łukasz Kićek, the head of the Money.pl editorial board, noted in this context that the cancellation of all contracts according to the milestone of the KPO would mean that “the work must be taken by politicians who are equal to the law. In the meantime, it was considered that the work would be taken by the employer, due to the fact that the law does not make uniform rules, but sends control.” In turn, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz stated: “We will never agree to destruct Polish companies in order to grow the authoritative device of the State Labour Inspection. “We will not let thousands of companies to fall by strengthening bureaucracy, control and authoritarian government of the State Labour Inspection.”
The dispute surrounding the family, work and social affairs promoted by the minister Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk of the bill on the amendment of the PIP Act ignites emotions that destruct the remains of the authority of the State Labour Inspection. Bad emotions, which play not only among opposition politicians or within the parliamentary-government coalition, are now consciously fueled on social media. Insinuation spirals directed at PIP are being shot.
In mid-December, the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy sent an improved version of the task to the Government Legislative Centre. However, its latest version did not see the light of day and it is not certain that it took note. The task should be published on the RCL portal and addressed to the Law Commission to then be sent to a gathering of the government. However, specified decisions have not been taken. Meanwhile, according to the KPO, the improvement should enter into force by the end of the year. Therefore, Minister A. Dziemianowicz-Bąk requested to velocity up work on the task and direct it immediately to the government's deliberations. However, on the agenda of the Council of Ministers on 30 December 2025, the draft was not included. During the meeting, Prime Minister Donald Tusk demanded that the task be withdrawn and there was a serious controversy over the fresh powers of labour inspectors, which lasted over an hour, as the Prime Minister and Minister Maciej Berek were reportedly deceived. As in the Political Podcast in TVN24+, Arlet Zalewski and Konrad Piasecki, the Prime Minister asked the Minister of Labour A. Dziemianowicz-Bąk and the Minister of Funds and Regional Policy K. Pełczyńska-Nałęcz to explain why something that the government did not agree on was included in the task and went to milestones. Tusk and the president of the SKRM, Minister M. Berek, were to accuse Dziemianovich-Bąk that “she wanted to smuggle her views into the bill.” To which she seemed to have responded that this most likely only proves well about the minister of government, that he was able to mock the legal and parliamentary commissions. The sharp discussion at the government gathering was informal, meaning that the project's government formally neither accepted nor rejected.
Attacked ministries don't know what they can do now. Right after the row in the government, a peculiar gathering was held on the frail task at the MRPiPS. The Ministry of Labour did not know much about what he could inactive do with it, since a version was sent to the RCL taking into account comments after the SKRM and there is no reason to change it.
At the minute erstwhile he did not agree to proceed with this project, Donald Tusk wanted to know what form of the improvement of civilian law contracts Poland could propose to the European Commission, but without the power to issue a decision by PIP inspectors to transform the contract. seemingly he had a re-revision of KPO on his mind. The Chief Labour Inspector after the scandal and Tusk's decision to retreat the task told the media that at this phase he did not know what would happen to the project. However, he declared ‘a willingness to join this project’. "Improving the task is impossible in this situation. The Prime Minister's request does not reflect records of this mythical milestone of the KPO after the June revision. It must be said openly that this is simply a change of decision by the government as to the form of the KPO" – said a individual reportedly close to the Ministry of Funds. individual akin to the government said that the conversion of contracts was the main component of the A71G milestone: “We proposed it ourselves, so if the PIP improvement Act, which allows the conversion of a civilian law contract into an administrative decision, will not be passed, the stone will not be realised and it will not be possible to send a payment application.”
A individual close to the hotel of funds believes that renegotiating this milestone will be very difficult. According to her, in the first half of 2025, the Tusk government negotiated that the PIP improvement should replace the cover-up of all contract contracts: “The revision was accepted in June, that information was given to everyone, and then six months later, we should go and say that we want to change again? What to propose in return, what reform? Whether the specified reinforcement of labour inspections is enough. It is hard to imagine going back to covering contracts, since the Prime Minister opposed this already at the beginning of last year. erstwhile you don't know what's going on, you know it's about money. large money. MPIRR does not say officially how much this milestone is worth, but people akin to this hotel and MPPiPS say that it is about EUR 2 billion, or about PLN 8 billion. The Prime Minister’s opposition is due to only 1 element, but its absence means the deficiency of a complete A71G KPO milestone."
Although the formally draft bill amending the PIP Act did not fall out of the Council of Ministers' deliberations and did not re-enter the MRPiS, it was sent back from the RCL to the Ministry, but on what legal basis... Eventually, on January 6, erstwhile asked about the bill, Donald Tusk announced: “I made a decision not to proceed working on specified a reform. I consider the substance closed." Similarly, on page X, Deputy Prime Minister and MON head Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz wrote: “It is good that the communicative of this task is over. From the very beginning of the PIP PSL Act was clearly against these changes. There was no, there is no, and there will not be our consent to push regulations hitting entrepreneurs."
Perhaps the case is closed for Tusk and PSL neoliberals, but as writer Polsat News Marcin Fijolek noted in the last episode of the program "Politic WF": "This will be 1 of the key problems in early 2026 for the coalition".
On his Facebook page, Piotr Ostrowski, president of the National Trade Union Agreement, warns that the government is playing with billions of KPO – and this is at the expense of employees. "Mr Prime Minister, delight take the side of millions of Polish workers and workers, not millionaires". According to the ‘New Citizen’, “a number of trade unions of different industries and ideological orientations jointly request that Tusk strengthen the State Labour Inspectorate and halt tolerating garbage employment [...] Garbage contracts are a profound regression of civilization. Entrepreneurs and MPs who effort to weaken or block the current revision of the PIP rules are taking Poland back to the 19th century reality. Worse still, members of the parties who usually trust on pro-European values, led by Prime Minister Donald Tuski himself, present block the pro-employable solutions that the European Union requires. They do so, even hazard losing billions of PLN from the National Reconstruction Plan for reconstruction and creating the socio-economic resilience of Poland in a time of crisis. In return, in the name of billions of profits of unfair entrepreneurs, politicians against PIP improvement push us into another deep crisis."
What changed from January/June last year to December? The interim talker of the Sejm, Holovnia, fell out of the game. The position of his ministers in the government has weakened. The strengthening function was given by a silent alliance with the ministers of the left. Therefore, by overturning their joint task Tusk gives both fresh Left and Poland 2025, its coalitions that without it they have no chance of having their own project. Here comes PSL Kosiniak-Kamisha and reports loudly to Tusk: we with you. We're better at this coalition, though in the polls, we're on our heads, on our necks. And all this against the background of the weakening position of the appetizers and the chief coalition after the defeat in the presidential election. Another dimension of interests is the natural contradiction between power and opposition. That's why Morawiecki's attacks on the Chief Labour Inspector go under an unspeakable slogan: we could have done it better. For social peace. So that employees and employees are appeased. Another dimension is classy and concerns the conflict of interests between workers and employed people. Between the Polish tiny bourgeoisie, in the West called the “average class” for the unspeakable, which in our country barely binds the ends to the ends, and the inexpensive labour forced on garbage trucks. And the last dimension of interests is the competition of transnational corporations and large capital in relation to both the tiny Polish capitalist and the Polish inexpensive labour force. The conflict of interests between what large neo-colonial capital needs in the global division of labour and exploitation and what the economically subordinate and exploited indigenous resources of the country and human capital must fight against them.
All these dimensions of conflicts of interest can be seen as in the lens in this chaos and embarrassment on government, due to the fact that the ministerial draft law amending the Act on State Labour Inspection. All you gotta do is look at it.
Roman Adler
Graphics in text header: Skibka from Pixabay
