BASIC PRINCIPLES
Employee Capital Pension Schemes will
cover not only employees, but also contractors. The scheme is to cover all working
Poles up to 70 years of age, in principle regardless of the legal basis for their
employment, as long as the given individual’s remuneration is subject to social
security contributions. According to the Ministry of Finance, the scheme will be
aimed at around 11 million Poles – 9
million from the business enterprise
sector and 2 million from the public sector. In principle, the ECPS will be
voluntary; however, every worker under the age of 55 will be understood to have
implicitly
consented to enrolment and will
participate in the scheme unless they specifically express a wish to opt out.
In the case of individuals over 55 years of age, the hiring entity may execute
an ECPS agreement for them only upon the given person’s explicit request.
AGREEMENTS WITH FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS
The legal structure of the ECPS is to be
based on a management agreement entered into between a hiring entity and a financial
institution (selected in consultation with the internal trade union
organization or with employee representatives) and on agreements to operate an
ECPS, to be executed by the hiring entity for and on behalf of each worker. The
hiring entity will be obliged to conclude an agreement for the operation of ECPS
for each worker following the third month of starting work, no later than by the
tenth day of the month following that in which the three-month period of work will
have expired. If this obligation is not fulfilled, a legal fiction will be
applied, namely that the ECPS agreement between the worker and the financial
institution is executed on the first day following the end of the said time
limit, on the terms and conditions as set out in the ECPS agreement between
this institution and the hiring entity.
WHO AND WHEN
According to the bill, the ECPS is to
be incrementally phased in, depending on the size (or type) of the hiring
entity. The plan is to be initially joined by companies employing at least 250 people
– who will have to implement the Act as early as from January 1, 2019. In
subsequent six-month intervals, the following entities are to participate in
the program: those with 50 to 249 workers (from 1 July 2019), companies with 20
to 49 workers (from 1 January 2020), and finally (from 1 July 2020) the
smallest companies and public sector entities.