On 4 August 2026, an amendment to the Polish Labour Code introducing significant changes to the rules on tackling discrimination and workplace bullying was published in the Polish Journal of Laws. It will enter into force on 5 November 2026.<\/p>\n
The amendment introduces a new definition of workplace bullying, referred to in Polish law as \u2018mobbing\u2019. Article 94\u00b3 of the Polish Labour Code currently requires, among other things, persistent and prolonged harassment or intimidation, together with the purpose or effect of humiliating, ridiculing, isolating or excluding the employee from the team. Under the amendment, the definition will be simplified: workplace bullying will mean conduct involving persistent harassment of an employee. The legislation clarifies that persistence means harassment that is repeated, recurrent and sustained. The key consideration will therefore be the persistent nature of the harassment, rather than formal proof that it continued for a particular extended period. The definition will also cease to require proof of harm to health, an intention to humiliate or ridicule, or an outcome involving professional isolation. In practice, this will make it easier to pursue claims where conduct was repeated but did not continue for many months; where harassment was verbal, non-verbal or physical; where the employee suffered no harm to health; or where the perpetrator did not act with an express intention to humiliate. The same applies where conduct was formally justified as management activity but in practice amounted to persistent harassment. The amount of compensation payable for non-material harm caused by workplace bullying will also increase.<\/p>\n
The amendment also adds two new forms of discrimination to the existing framework. Discrimination by perception occurs where an employee is treated less favourably because of a characteristic incorrectly attributed to them. For example, an employer might refuse to promote an employee on the mistaken assumption that they have a particular sexual orientation, or a candidate might be denied employment because the recruiter wrongly assumes that they have a particular nationality or religion. Discrimination by association, in turn, involves less favourable treatment because of an employee’s relationship or connection with a person who has a protected characteristic. Examples include treating an employee less favourably because they care for a child with a disability, or passing over a female employee for promotion because her partner is a foreign national. The amendment also introduces compensation for non-material harm resulting from discrimination and provides for different minimum amounts.<\/p>\n
In addition, employers with at least ten employees will be required to set out the following in their workplace rules or a separate policy: rules for preventing infringements of employees’ dignity and other personal rights; measures to prevent unequal treatment, discrimination and workplace bullying; a procedure for receiving and handling reports; arrangements for protecting the reporting person; rules for conducting internal investigations; and the frequency of preventive and educational activities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The amendment to the Polish Labour Code changes the definition of workplace bullying, extends protection against discrimination and introduces new employer obligations. Under the timetable described, it enters into force on 5 November 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6790,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"class_list":["post-6801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bsiw.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bsiw.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bsiw.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bsiw.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bsiw.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6801"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bsiw.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6802,"href":"https:\/\/bsiw.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6801\/revisions\/6802"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bsiw.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bsiw.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bsiw.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}