Employee Capital Plans under Labour Inspectorate scrutiny

The National Labour Inspectorate will rely on reports from employees and on spot checks to verify that employers are discharging their duties with respect to establishment of employee capital plans.

The legislative Act of 4 October 2018 regarding employee capital plans (2018 Dz.U. item 2215) introduces the possibility for amassing an extra nest egg for retirement. The legislature has decided that oversight in this regard shall be exercised by the National Labour Inspectorate.

“Consequent to coming into force of this statute, we have planned audits with respect to the duty to execute contracts for operation and for management of employee capital plans. Our inspectors will also check whether employers are remitting the mandatory contributions. The first checks of this sort will be performed as soon as in July”, explains Danuta Rutkowska, National Labour Inspectorate spokeswoman.

Why July ?  Implementation of the new savings form comprised in employee capital plans has been scheduled in stages. The duty to establish employee capital plans for their employees will be incumbent, in the first order of sequence, on large companies with workforces numbering at least 250 members, and the applicable implementation deadline falls on 1 July. (…)

The National Labour Inspectorate vs the National Social Insurance Institution

Some experts have voiced doubts as to what they view as, in essence, vesting the National Labour Inspectorate with prosecution powers, at least as regards employee capital plan infringements.

“Introducing new duties for the labour inspectorate without increasing its budget may lead to ineffectiveness”, ventures Adam Kraszewski, attorney at GESSEL. “Regrettably enough, the legislature seems to have adopted the assumption that the National Labour Inspectorate will perform these new oversight functions, as it were, by the way, piggybacking on its previous duties. In the meantime, verifying due discharge of duties related to employee capital plans calls for specialised knowledge of  the sort more within the purview of the Social Insurance Institution”, Kraszewski explains.

The full text (in Polish) is available at Dziennik Gazeta Prawna (17.01.2019).