The length of service needs to change. The regulations have been ignoring many people who work normally for years.

The Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Policy has presented a draft amendment to labor law, the most important element of which is a change in the method of calculating length of service. Many employee and pension-related entitlements depend on length of service.

Seniority – what is it like today?

Seniority is the total length of all previous periods of employment, including periods of study or parental leave.

When determining seniority, the years in which the employee performed work on the basis of an employment contract, appointment, nomination, election or cooperative employment contract are taken into account. This calculation does not include work on civil contracts, i.e. contracts for services and contracts for specific work. The time spent running a sole proprietorship is also not taken into account. However, let us immediately add the reservation that work on the basis of a contract for services or running a business are included in the so-called contribution periods giving the right to a pension.

Length of service translates into various types of employment rights, such as longer vacation time or retirement benefits.

Seniority. Proposed changes

According to the presented draft, not only periods of employment under an employment contract will be included in the length of service, but also periods of conducting business activity and performing civil law contracts. The draft states that “the period of employment includes periods of conducting non-agricultural business activity by a natural person and periods of being a collaborator with a person conducting non-agricultural business activity, for which contributions to pension, disability or accident insurance were paid”.

If the change comes into effect, it will significantly equalize some of the rights of contractors with those of full-time employees. For example, today, a longer amount of leave (26 days) is due after 10 years of work. To put it simply, a full-time employee who has previously completed a master’s degree will receive this amount after working for 2.5 years. His colleague, who was employed for several years on the basis of a contract for services or a specific work, and then switched to an employment contract, will still have 20 days of leave at his disposal for the first 2.5 years. In the eyes of the law, he did not work long enough to earn a longer amount.

Confirmation of employment periods

How will it be possible to confirm the period of employment for the purpose of calculating the length of service? The ministry’s proposal is as follows:

• Periods of conducting business activity will be confirmed by a certificate issued by the Social Insurance Institution on payment of contributions for pension, disability or accident insurance.

• Periods of performance of civil law contracts will be confirmed by a ZUS certificate on coverage of pension and disability insurance.

• In the case of periods in which a natural person was not covered by insurance but ran a business activity, the confirmation will be a ZUS certificate on coverage by health insurance.