But if you pay ZUS, at least you get your medicines for the normal rate and do not have to pay the complete price.
And to be fair, many of the services under the NFZ aren't bad at all. For instance, it's very easy to find a competent NFZ dentist, who, unlike the UK, will happily keep seeing you until you're completely sorted.
So are there really many more benefits for me to set up 'działalność gospadarczy' (setting yoursef up as a self-employed entity).
Probably not, unless you're a true freelancer. There's not much benefit to anyone who has a stable set up like yourself - though the business does give you the ability to chop and change as you see fit without relying on schools to give you a contract.
But how much, realistically speaking, does a teacher end up at the end of the month from this. Accountant seems to be 150 zl. a month. Zus for the first 2 years is exactly what (my employer said 290zł). Given that he was pushing me in this direction I figured it was bad for me.
350zl these days for the first two years. It's not necessarily bad for you, but more accurately, it's probably not worthwhile if you're working solely for one school. I'm properly freelance and probably issue between 12 to 16 invoices a month - so it's well worth it for me. But then, I do 4 hours here, 3 hours there, 10 hours somewhere else - so it's very effective for me - I do this by choice, as it's much easier to remind schools that you have alternatives out there.
There is of course lots of additional stuff (unpaid) that goes with teaching in a school - reports, homework, class prep., meetings.
I have none of this, thankfully - again, the true benefit of being freelance is that you can simply blow off anything unnecessary.
Is there any foreign language teacher out there who has umowa o pracę??
Not in any private language school. No-one would be so stupid, because the laws are such that no school would risk it.
And to those of you who have set yourselves up as a separate teaching 'company', how much and what can you put down in costs per month. Details would be appreciated and useful I think to many teachers who read these threads.
I would be shocked if any teacher actually knew the ins and outs of it. That's why we use accountants - it's just not worth the hassle of understanding the complexities of Polish tax law for something that costs us 3 hours work a month at most. But - to give an idea - I write off the cost of my office, travelling, mobile phone, office equipment, stationery, books (any sort of English materials), photocopies, ZUS, advertising costs - basically, as long as it's justifiable, it's allowed. But the calculations are horrifically complex - and beyond the work of anyone who doesn't speak Polish well. But for instance - even education costs related to the business are justifiable - conferences, training courses, etc.
It's actually quite easy to write off a significant amount as "costs".
Hence, collective bargaining is virtually impossible
To be honest, the reason for this is because most teachers can't see beyond the next summer. There's also a glut of overqualified English teachers in Poland - if a school such as Empik was facing unionization, they would just cull their existing teachers and steal teachers from other schools. No sweat to them.
