Are Foreigners’ Human Rights Protected if Foreigners are Employed under the Polish Facilitated Access to Labor Market Scheme?

Abstract

Civil-law non-employment contracts are abused when employing Polish citizens and foreigners. Contrary to Poles, non-Polish citizens are exposed to linguistic difficulties (the law does not specify a standard of a translation of their contracts), and an application for Polish short-term simplified immigration employment system (a declaration on entrusting work to a foreigner in the territory of the Republic of Poland) does not contain information about differences between civil law and employment contracts. Based on a synthetic theoretical-conceptual analysis the author claims that Polish law exposes foreigners to a higher risk of discrimination. The article aims to prove that mismatch between excessively long court proceedings and short validity of residence permits, as well as linking validity of a visa with employment in a specific employer deprive foreigners from a possibility to effectively personally participate in court proceeding in their employment case. Previous analysis related to seasonal works performed by foreigners had not focused on the nature of the contracts. This article is, therefore, innovative research. It verifies if Polish law discourages employers from abusing civil contracts with such foreigners, if it is in line with the ILO Recommendation No. 198, and if it meets Polish constitutional standard regarding legal clarity. The innovativeness of the research theme can also be derived from the fact that although declarations are the most popular foreigner’s employment scheme in Poland and in the European Union, previous research have not focused on human rights of beneficiaries of the declaration scheme.

Keywords

• the employer’s declaration on entrusting work to a foreigner on the territory of the republic of poland
• visa
• employment contract
• civil law contracts
• employee’s rights