EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS

EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS 2022

Prague, Czechia

of remuneration are established by means of statutory regulations, but also by collective agreements, e.g. with teachers, or by means of pay regulations that are used in many workplaces. The abovementioned is called the principle of equal treatment, or the principle of equal rights, meaning that employees who perform the same duties must be treated equally. This applies in particular to the equal treatment of men and women in employment. This principle applies to equality in the material sense. This means that the employer should not treat all employees identically, it is possible to treat differently employees who perform different duties or the same duties, but in different ways. It is also possible to differentiate employees’ rights depending on their personal characteristics, such as predispositions, education or qualifications, or differences in work performance and length of service. It is important that the criteria for differentiating employees are not discriminatory. The principle of non-discrimination means that an employee is not treated inferiorly because of non-work-related features or properties listed in Article 11 (3) of the Labour Code, important from the social point of view, such as, for example, gender, age, religion, disability, or because of the type of employment, e.g., temporary or permanent employment. Employment discrimination means unacceptable differentiation of the legal situation of employees according to these negative and prohibited criteria. Discrimination will be the unlawful deprivation or restriction of employee rights, or the granting certain workers fewer rights than those enjoyed by other workers in the same situation. In Poland, there are still a few cases of violation of employee rights. The most common allegations relate to hindering or restricting trade union activities, such as an employer’s failure to provide trade union organizations with premises and technical equipment, failure to provide notice boards, or removal of information from them, employer’s refusal to provide information necessary to conduct trade union activities, refusing to release an authorized trade union activist from the obligation to perform work (the dismissal may take place in various working hours) with the retention of the right to remuneration in order to perform an ad hoc trade union activity, when this activity could not be performed during leisure time. There have also been cases of seizure of union property and violation of union correspondence (Szymonek, 2011 online). 3. Social market economy as a principle of the economic system The concept of a social market economy was implemented by L. Erhard, the German Minister of Economy in the government of K. Adenauer. Its aim is to operate in a free-market economic system in such a way as to maintain high economic growth, low inflation, and low unemployment, while ensuring decent working conditions, a system of social security, and the provision of high-

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