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Have You heard about legalizing 12-hour working day in Poland? [38]
It may look like a "badly needed change", but I'm afraid that in Polish reality employees that were exploited already will be even more exploited.
I think it's important to analyse who is protesting and why.
For me, what this means is that many State-owned businesses (or majority State owned) will be able legally to demand flexible working conditions from their employees. That was missing before - and those employees often were very rigid in their mentality towards flexible working. Businesses in general will be able to deploy their labour far more flexibly without falling foul of the rules - which means that they should be more willing to give umowa o prace in the first place.
Most genuine private-sector workers were already working somewhat flexibly as it is. No-one sane is going to push employees into difficult split shifts - they'll lose the good workers very quickly, and it's hard enough to find good reliable employees in Poland.
I don't think it'll lead to any extra exploitation - in the "Polish reality", exploited workers were never on umowa o prace to begin with. If you want to exploit someone, you aren't going to give them a contract that gives them significant rights.
"but they will get those hours back at quiet times." - pracitce shows that workers don't get those hours.
Since when? In virtually every business I've seen, they keep a very close track of these things for fear of the consequences of breaking them. Labour law (for those on umowa o prace) is very heavily loaded in favour of the employee.
What about payable overtime?
If it's genuine overtime, it'll be paid. But if it all averages out at 40 hours, why should overtime be paid?
What about working partialy at one day? (7-9; 11-1pm, 2-3 pm etc.).
Already a reality for many seasonal workers. And most business owners know fine well that making someone work that sort of shifts won't work in the long run - the productivity losses by keeping people hanging around will more than outweigh the benefits of not paying them for a couple of hours.
So, you work 12-hours a day (cutted in few parts a day), you can be fired after 6 months and don't get money for half a year overtime work.
Except it won't work like that, because the 12 hour days have to be averaged over 6 months. Someone genuinely working 12 hours a day for 6 months would be in line for a massive overtime payment, as well as the employer being in significant trouble for breaking the law. If they have breaks in the middle of the shift, then it's a free labour market - they didn't have to accept the job.
What can and will change is that many state-owned companies may now start to demand genuine flexibility from workers. They may have to start working around the business, rather than the previous situation where the business worked for the employees. I suspect at least some of the protests come in that direction.
From an employment point of view, this situation actually makes it much easier for employers to hire people on proper contracts. For instance - let's say you run a hotel that's very popular in summer and in the winter holidays. Your workers can now legally work 12-14 hour days in season, while getting that time returned to them in the unpopular spring and autumn months. It works for everyone - they get a proper contract, they get masses of time off when the business is quiet and everyone's happy.
More... according to this law, employer can push employees to work in one day for example from 8 to 10, then 12-1 pm, then 2-5 pm, and 7-9 pm - and it'll be counted as 8-hours day.
Yes, but any employer doing this wouldn't be offering umowa o prace in the first place.
More... government is preparing act about liquidation of free sundays nad saturdays - if somebody work in foreign company, which is oriented to states, which don't have similar to polish holidays. For example, if somebody work for arabic company, has no right to free sundays (and in fact fridays too...).
Which makes sense. They can have free Mondays and Tuesdays instead.
