Urlopy wypoczynkowe pracowników najemnych w Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej. Ustawodawstwo a praktyka

Abstract

All paid holiday leave before Poland regained its independence was a privilege available only to selected groups of employees, mostly civil servants with high qualifications and employed in senior positions or persons in public service. The workers, with very limited exceptions, did not use holiday leave. The regained independence and the first years after the First World War created favourable conditions for the development of the foundations of the Polish labour law, already standardised for the areas of all three former partitions. During this first period the labour laws were implemented, very favourable for the employees, regulating inter alia the issue of the work-ing time (by implementing 8 hour working day, so called “English Saturday”, bigger number of bank holidays compared to other countries). During the same period Poland was one of the first countries in the world to implement statutory paid leaves for employed persons. Pursuant to the 1922 act all employees working in the industry and retail sectors were entitled to holiday leave. A labourer after one year of uninterrupted work at the same enterprise was entitled to holiday leave at the level of eight and after three years of work of fifteen days. The white collar workers had guaranteed longer holiday leave – two weeks after six months of uninterrupted work and one month after a year. The Labour Inspection was responsible for correct execution of the holiday leave regulations, which however had rather limited powers of enforcement of new regulations. The execution of the holiday leave regulations implemented in 1922 was far from perfect. The employers were avoiding both granting holiday leaves to the employees and payment of remunera-tion for the holiday leave period in accordance with the regulations. The situation of employees got worse as a result of the Great Depression. The amendment of the holiday leave regulations conducted at that time resulted in a significant decrease of the level of remuneration for holiday leave period. The increasing unemployment contributed to a decrease of number of people entitled to take the holiday leave. The employees afraid of losing the job were reluctant to take holiday leave. As a result until the outbreak of the Second World War the purpose of the holiday leave act was not achieved.