Tusk government promises to shorten working hours

With both options currently on the table, it seems most likely that it will be up to companies to decide whether to make Fridays or Mondays free.

“It will be determined whether a better option would be to reduce the average working week from 40 to 35 hours or to implement a four-day workweek,” Family, Labour and Social Policy Minister Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk announced last month.

Shorter working weeks have more supporters in Poland than seven-hour days, with 70% of employers preferring a four-day week, according to research by the ClickMeeting platform.

Poland introduced the five-day week with Saturday off in 1952.

Reducing the working week to four days would be a revolutionary change, and even the government is divided.

Dziemianowicz-Bąk is in favour of the planned changes. In a relatively good economic situation, with a fairly low unemployment rate and the expectations of young people, the demand to reduce working hours so that people have more time for their families, development and rest must be taken seriously, she said earlier this year.

“In the ministry, we do take it seriously, and I believe the time has come to shorten the working week in the coming years,” she argued.

“Studies show that the longer we work, the more stressed and tired we become. Another hour at work doesn’t necessarily translate into another hour of efficiency,” she told Dziennik Gazeta Prawna news outlet.

Unlike her colleague, State Funds and Regional Policy Minister Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz remains sceptical about the idea of shortening the working week.

“We have a demographic crisis. It was 15 years ago that as many as four people worked for one pensioner (in Poland). Now, it is less than three, and by 2050, it will be only two,” she told private broadcaster  Polsat News on Friday evening. 

In such circumstances, a four-day working week” is not a direction we should follow,” she added.

She pointed to a generational conflict between generations X, Y and Z. “The young generation, unlike my own generation (Pełczyńska-Nałęcz was born in 1970), no longer considers work to be the most fundamental part of their lives, but one of the important spheres of it, which, however, must be combined with family life, self-development, passion, and other fascinations,” she said.

Work on amending the Labour Code is expected to gain momentum in the autumn and may be completed next spring, as reducing working hours could help the ruling coalition in the 2025 presidential election campaign, reported the infor.pl news outlet.

According to Eurostat data, Poles work an average of 40.5 hours a week, the longest in the European Union after Greeks. The EU average is 37.5 hours, and the global average is 34.2 hours.

Longer holidays

While a shorter working week or day would be a far-reaching change in itself, the unions want more.

They want the paid annual leave provided for in the Labour Code to be increased by nine days to 35 days. 

The Solidarity trade union, which submitted the proposal to the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Affairs, argues that annual leave, like working hours, has not changed for half a century, although the world and workers’ expectations have changed dramatically.

Another argument is that, under the current Labour Code, the holiday extension only applies to selected groups of workers, including those with significant family responsibilities.

The Socialists & Democrats (S&D) had proposed the 35-day paid leave several years ago, but the bill was not debated in parliament until the end of the parliamentary term in 2023. The party included the proposal again in its 2023 election manifesto but has not returned to it so far, despite coming to power as part of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s broad coalition (EPP/S&D/Renew).

Combining a four-day working week with 35 days’ holiday is unlikely, though, as Infor.pl points out, it would mean that every worker would be entitled to two months’ annual holiday. 

A more likely option is a 35-hour week for all employees and a 35-day holiday for those with the longest tenure.

Business demands fair consultations

Those most reluctant to see dramatic changes in the working week are the business community.

“Employers object to the way such revolutionary ideas are currently being consulted,” stressed Hanna Mojsiuk, head of the Northern Economic Chamber in Szczecin, as quoted by Infor.pl.

Nobody denies that the changes are necessary, she said, while stressing the need for dialogue with entrepreneurs. 

“We don’t want a comeback to the not-so-positive schemes we got used to, where changes are first announced, and only then consultations may take place,” Mojsiuk added.