Loan and assistance funds (credit unions) from October 11, 2021 – new act
Until now, the activities of the credit unions institutions were regulated mainly by the executive act to the act on trade unions – the Regulation of the Council of Ministers of 19 December 1992 on employee benefit and loan unions and cooperative savings and credit unions in workplaces. At present, therefore, loan and assistance funds (credit unions) are an institution regulated by a higher order bound act, partly independent from the regulations of the Act on Trade Unions.
Although the act largely duplicates the regulations provided for in the above-mentioned regulation, it introduces several innovations. First of all, the right to establish KZP is granted to at least 10 people, including those who perform work for remuneration on a basis other than an employment relationship (and thus also civil law contracts such as commission), and not only to persons employed under an employment contract
Due to the fact that under the Act, KZP may also be established at an employer for which company trade unions do not operate, in accordance with the new regulations, in such cases control over KZP will be exercised by the employee council, and in the absence of it – by representation of people performing paid work selected in the manner adopted by a given employer..
On top of it, the act introduces, inter alia, in addition to the obligatory reasons for deletion from the list of KZP members, optional reasons, and provisions regulating the principles of personal data processing by KZP.
The full text of the legal act is available here: http://orka.sejm.gov.pl/proc9.nsf/ustawy/1313_u.htm