The Right of Association in Trade Unions – the Right of Employees, or the Right of the Working People?
The Right of Association in Trade Unions – the Right of Employees, or the Right of the Working People?

Summary/Abstract: The author analyses the Polish regulations on the right of association in trade unions, from the point of view of their compliance with international standards in this area. The scope ratione personae of the right of association in trade unions was defined in the Polish law through detailed enumeration of the categories of persons who are allowed to form trade unions and join them. The current Trade Union Act of 23 May 1991 grants this right to employees (in the legal meaning) and to strictly identified other social groups. According to international law, the freedom of association in trade unions is basically a universal law of all working people. The most important regulation in that respect is Convention No 87 of the International Labour Organization. The term used in the Polish language version of the Convention No. 87 (“pracownicy”) corresponds to the English word “workers”, meaning not only the employee in the legal sense, as the English term “employee”, but generally a person who works on a professional basis. This leads to the conclusion that the right of coalition is granted to workers in the broad sense of the term, including both employees in the strict sense as well as other persons for whom the source of income is their professional work, regardless of the legal basis for its performance. It justifies putting forward a postulate that the Polish Trade Union Act be amended by deleting the provisions which limit the right of association in trade unions in the case of working people other than employees.

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