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Parliamentary Committee discussed inspections of drivers’ working time During its session held at the seat of Parliament on 19 May 2010, Parliamentary Committee for State Supervision analysed the Chief Labour Inspector’s information about implementation by the National Labour Inspectorate of the “National strategy for inspecting provisions on driving time and stopover time, obligatory breaks and rest periods of drivers in 2009 and 2010”. The strategy is in compliance with Community legislation and is aimed at improving social conditions for drivers and road transport safety. Dr Marian Liwo, Deputy Chief Labour Inspector emphasised that involvement of the NLI in implementing the said strategy had put particularly difficult inspection and supervisory duties on the inspectorate. That necessitated special preparation of staff, introduction of new procedures for imposing fines in the form of administrative decisions, as well as purchase of equipment to register and analyse data gathered during inspections. There exist additional difficulties, such as: complexity of the act on working time of drivers, a large number of inspection authorities which implement the strategy and imposition of inspection limits on the inspectorate. While presenting outcomes of NLI’s activities carried out so far, Halina Tulwin, Director of Legal Department at the Chief Labour Inspectorate, emphasised that inspections which are conducted as part of the national strategy are decidedly more time-consuming and require much more attention than traditional ones. It results from a large number of working days of drivers covered with inspections and the necessity to verify records on each chart before they are analysed by the programme. Post-inspection reports are large, with 100 or more pages. Decisions imposing fines for law infringements also have several pages each. Last year, labour inspectors inspected 364 employers of the road transport sector, engaging over 35 thousand employees; in the first quarter of 2010 – 103 employers, engaging over 5.5 thousand individuals. The most frequent irregularities consisted in unreliable keeping of working time records, failure to specify systems of working time for drivers, incorrect length of settlement periods, and employment of drivers on the so-called sixth day of the week. NLI identified many cases of shortening minimum daily rest periods for drivers, and driving vehicles for over 4.5 hours without the required break. Just in the first quarter of 2010, NLI inspectors issued 54 decisions imposing fines totalling PLN 374 550 for 1268 infringements of legislation. NLI is of the opinion that one of the main conclusions which come to mind during inspection visits is the necessity to change statutory legislation, because provisions of the act on working time are not coherent with Community legislation which gives more freedom to organize work of drivers. MP Adam Czartoryski, chairman of Parliamentary Committee for State Supervision observed that the Polish act was too restrictive and due to its frequent amendments employers had a big problem interpreting its provisions. Director Halina Tulwin reminded all that the issue had been raised by the labour inspectorate almost half a year before in its proposals de lege ferenda (on necessary amendments to legislation). The labour inspectorate has learned that the Minister of Infrastructure had a positive opinion on the proposals. During the discussion, Members of Parliament drew everyone’s attention to imposition of strict sanctions on inspected transport companies, which places too large a burden on them and not infrequently leads to bankruptcy of companies. – A driver breaches provisions on working time, the entrepreneur is penalised for that and the company goes bankrupt. I would recommend to exercise caution while imposing fines – said MP Jadwiga Wiśniewska. – Is the penalty always adequate to the infringement? – asked MP Jan Religa – Penalties must be diversified and proportionate to each offence. – A driver is awaiting at the frontier for 60 hours and afterwards he has to rest, because it was working time for him. So, how can the transport company earn money? Therefore, the driver neglects a statutory duty to rest, breaks the provision and as a consequence the employer is punished. We have wrong provisions on road transport – reasoned MP Krzysztof Borkowski. – The task implemented by the labour inspectorate is very time-consuming. This is another burdensome duty for the NLI. Why is the labour inspectorate, subordinate to Parliament, implementing the governmental strategy? This task can be fulfilled completely by the road transport inspectorate – said deputy chairman of Parliamentary Committee for State Supervision MP Janusz Krasoń. Referring to views expressed at the discussion, Chief Labour Inspector Tadeusz Jan Zając said, among others: – We have not issued any guidelines about fiscal approach to such inspections. The Act has an annex which specifies amounts of fines. This is an exceptional situation where National Labour Inspectorate’s inspectors are required to strictly follow the said annex. A specific amount of fine is set for each offence, with no possibility of manoeuvre. Members of Parliament decided to prepare an opinion for the Minister of Infrastructure and point out the necessity to amend Polish legislation on working time of drivers. Their voice would support NLI’s suggestions included in de lege ferenda proposals. Małgorzata Kwiatkowska, Director of Department of Cooperation with Parliament and Social Partners, attended the session. |
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