DZP is reporting that on November 24, 2016, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled that a Polish regulation allowing payments for international transport drivers to be made in the form of overnight allowances is not compliant with the Polish Constitution, in the process accepting the argument made by DZP's lawyers on behalf of the Transport & Logistics Poland Employers' Association. The firm’s application for a ruling on the constitutionality of article 21a of the Act on Drivers' Working Time was filed by the firm in February 2015.
The disputed regulation meant that professional drivers were subject to the same regulations as public sector workers for whom business trips are not usually a basic duty. The confusion over it, according to DZP, "caused serious turmoil on the market," as "employers were flooded with a wave of claims from drivers, demanding high overnight allowances for spending the night in their cabs on international trips." The firm reports that "a different interpretation of the issue was made by, e.g., the Supreme Court, [and] the situation therefore posed a business risk for the entire sector."
The Transport & Logistics Poland Employers’ Association was represented by DZP Counsel Tomasz Zalasinski and Bogusław Kaplon, Head of the firm’s Labor Law Practice.
