In its judgment of 28 August 2024 (I PSKP 15/24), the Supreme Court stated that while it is permissible to differentiate the legal status of employee groups that are not equal by definition (management staff and other employees), or to condition the amount of benefits due on the length of employment, where a given payment was linked to the performance of work, and the „fulfillment of duties” was „the same”, it is not possible to introduce variables that defragment the legal status of employees.
The principle of equal treatment is not absolute. It is permissible to condition the legal status of an employee based on a significant premise that distinguishes him (or a group of employees) from others. While the discriminatory criteria, for example those listed in Article 183a § 1 of the Labor Code, they generally concern personal characteristics, while the equality aspect is broader and may focus on factors not directly related to the person, but primarily to the circumstances of the work performed by them. It is not without reason that Article 112 of the Labour Code provides that employees have equal rights due to the equal performance of the same duties. The point of reference is therefore both „equal” and „fulfillment of duties”. The point is not to depreciate the work of some employees while promoting the activities performed by other employees.
In the case at hand, the plaintiff claimed an annual bonus, the so-called fourteenth salary for 2016 and coal allowance for 2016. There is no doubt that these benefits were conditioned on remaining in employment in 2016, and the plaintiff met this stipulation. This means that „the performance of his duties” was „the same” in relation to employees who did not terminate their employment relationships after 2016, and to whom these benefits were paid under the provisions of the 2018 agreement. This conclusion authorizes the statement that the condition of remaining „still employed on the date of signing the agreement”, depriving the plaintiff of the right to the claimed benefits, violates the principle of equal treatment in employment under Article 112 of the Labor Code, and thus, under Article 9 § 4 of the Labor Code, this provision does not apply, and therefore the plaintiff rightly derives his right from the 2018 agreement. In this respect, the cassation appeal is correct, because it alleges that the Court of Appeal violated Article 9 § 4 of the Labor Code in connection with the 2018 agreement and a breach of Article 112 of the Labor Code
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