Trade Union Rights and Freedoms in the Constitution of April 2, 1997

The subject of this article is the analysis of the provisions made in the Constitution of April 2, 1997 on the freedoms and rights of trade unions in Poland. The constitutional concept of the freedom of association involves the freedom of forming trade unions and employers’ associations, the right to negotiate and finalise collective agreements, the right of collective bargaining, as well as the right to organize and participate in strikes and other forms of protest. These regulations assume not only the reduction of state interference in the formation and activity of trade unions, but it ensures the provision of appropriate legislative regulations, which grant trade unions adequate powers to allow for efficient action in the social and economic settings. In the author’s opinion, the provisions of the Constitution of April 2, 1997 offer a comprehensive protection of trade union rights and freedoms and the legislation is in accordance with international legal standards in this area.

The article presents the issue of compliance of the Polish Constitution with the Act of 11 September 2015 on the entitlement to the property of the Holiday Employee Fund (Dz.U. No. 1824). The author presents the origins of the organization, and what changes have taken place in its legal status. The Act regulating the status of assets after Holiday Employee Fund was declared unconstitutional in 1997. The legislator had to regulate this issue again, which did not happen until 2015. The author estimates the new regulation based on the constitutional principles of protection of property rights, democratic rule of law, non-retroactivity and certainty of real estate transactions.

The article aims to discuss the European standards concerning the freedom of association of armed forces personnel. Relevant norms in this regard result from human rights treaty law but also from soft-law elaborated within the Council of Europe. The authors juxtapose the existing standards with the scope of the freedom of association provided in Polish Constitution of 1997 and relevant domestic law. They ask whether the armed forces personnel need to form and join trade unions to secure their rights or perhaps the existing forms of exercising the freedom of association are satisfactory? The authors conclude that the current legal solutions in Poland meet the European and constitutional standards, and allow the Polish Armed Forces to observe neutrality regarding political matters. Nevertheless, the prohibition to form and join trade unions in Polish armed forces is of statutory rather than constitutional origin.