The legislature introduced the work of "neutral" occupation notices, but did not explain what it meant by shifting the interpretative hazard to employers and courts. Recruitment is like a minefield – any language form can be considered discriminatory and the burden of proof falls on the employer; at least the minimum wage equivalent is at stake – warns Mr Jerzy Kwaśniewski, president of the Ordo Iuris Institute, in the survey Neutrality without definition – a fresh work to recruit a origin of legal uncertainty for employers.
The amendment of the Labour Code, which entered into force on December 24, 2025, introduced the work of sex neutrality of occupation notices to the Polish legal order in Article 183c of the Labour Code (the names of gender-neutral posts). The stated nonsubjective of the regulation is to destruct possible barriers to employment already at the recruitment stage.
"neutrality" clause without normative content – shifting interpretative hazard to employer
The problem, however, is that the legislator has not clearly defined what the "neutrality" of a occupation announcement is expected to be, leaving this concept in the area of the unspecified general clause. Consequently, the burden of filling it was passed on to employers and – ex post – to labour courts.
The most serious effect of the amendment is simply a extremist increase in legal uncertainty on the part of employers. Neither the Ministry nor the State Labour Inspectorate has provided uniform interpretative guidance to answer fundamental applicable questions, in particular:
– whether the work of neutrality only covers the content of occupation notices or:
the names of the posts in the working regulations,
organisational diagrams,
responsibilities,
recruitment documentation;
– whether recruitment for a post named otherwise than in the company files is acceptable.
In law publishing, it is argued that an employer is not allowed to recruit for a position that is not formally existing in the organisational structure, leading to a conflict between the requirements of labour law and new, indeterminate linguistic expectations.
Especially problematic is the way in which occupation notices are edited. The deficiency of a definition of legal ‘neutrality’ makes the employer incapable to find in advance which language forms are legally safe.
Doubts include:
– usage of double structures (‘book/accountancy’),
– replacing the names of professions with descriptive constructions ("the accounting person" or peculiarly ridiculed "the accounting person").
Each of these forms may be challenged by a candidate (described by the Act as an ‘employee’) who has not been employed as an indirect discrimination. It should be recalled that in accordance with Article 183b § 1 of the Labour Code, the burden of proof in cases of violation of the rule of equal treatment lies with the employer. This means that the applicant's own claim of discrimination triggers an work on the part of the employer to show that it did not occur.
Job announcement as a possible basis for compensation liability
This hazard has a real dimension since the punishment is compensation of no little than the minimum monthly remuneration for work, regardless of the actual harm suffered.
Declarations by the State Labour Inspectorate on the deficiency of ongoing monitoring of occupation notices and inability to impose sanctions do not destruct legal risks. Firstly, they are not a origin of law, and secondly, the announced extension of PIP competence in 2026 may consequence in the introduction of an administrative model for enforcing language neutrality, including through mandates and fines.
This means that employers already request to adapt to regulations, whose applicable importance will only be full revealed in the future – which runs counter to the rule of the citizen's trust in the state and its rights.
From the position of employers, the amendment:
1. deepens normative chaos and increases the cost of legal service of recruitment processes,
2. hinders the usage of intuitive, commonly understood language,
3. forces the usage of language forms not rooted in the tradition of Polish language,
4. introduces financial sanctions for breach of obligations of a highly unacute nature.
At the same time, it cannot be demonstrated that this regulation leads to a real improvement in the situation of workers. There is no empirical evidence that the formal language neutrality of the notices affects actual recruitment decisions, peculiarly in the labour market, which, according to the available data, is not characterised by structural wage discrimination based on sex at a level comparable to any Western European countries.
Regulation over EU standards – normative chaos, ideology and erosion of the rule of legal certainty
In the light of the rule of proportionality, the view should be shared that the Polish legislator has gone beyond the minimum standards resulting from EU directives. EU law requires equal access to employment, but does not require the imposition of specific, ideologically targeted language solutions or the penalisation of conventional forms of national language.
The government utilized the chance to impose far more drastic and artificial rules on employers to announce vacancies than the EU legislature wanted. The reason is simple: the Polish Ministry utilized the chance to make the Polish labour marketplace an experimental field gender studies. We pay the price, due to the fact that not only the safety of employers is the victim, but besides the beauty of Polish language. The Act should defend the right to usage literary and dictionary native language in Poland.
Meanwhile, in the Polish legal order, the name of professions and functions in the form of men's or women's (including: doctor, nurse, teacher) proceed to function, which exposes the deficiency of consequences on the part of the legislator and undermines the legitimacy of the transfer of interpretative hazard to employers. Even on 1 January 2026, an amendment to the alleged Mining Act came into force, which repeats the sexually contaminated name ‘Miner Day’ (instead of the neutral ‘Feder Day’). If the government itself is not consistent in the usage of neutral language in the description of professions, how can it require consequences from employers?
Ordo Iuris experts join the work on the draft amendment of the Polish Language Protection Act. At the statutory level, the right to usage in all area of social life the Polish language is correct in writing. In our view, legislative intervention is necessary, which will reconstruct the balance between the prohibition of discrimination and the protection of Polish language and the rule of legal certainty. Labour law must not force labour marketplace participants to decision in the area of obscure ideological language cancers, entrapping them with severe financial sanctions.
Jerzy Kwasniewski
Source: Ordo Iuris
