“The parliamentary bill regarding teachers is disrespectful.” Open letter to Donald Tusk

The parliamentary draft amendment to the Teacher's Charter regarding remuneration for overtime hours is a disregard of the Joint Commission of the Government and Local Government – said the Association of Rural Municipalities of the Republic of Poland in an open letter to Prime Minister Donald Tusk and MPs.

Last week, a group of MPs from the Civic Coalition submitted to the Sejm a draft amendment to the Teacher's Charter, according to which teachers will receive remuneration when teachers are ready to work at school and classes are not held for reasons beyond their control. The project is the result of the intervention of the Prime Minister, who announced that it would be submitted in parliamentary mode after a meeting with teachers from Legionowo. He noted that the parliamentary procedure would speed up the procedure.

The Association of Rural Municipalities of the Republic of Poland sent an open letter to the Prime Minister and MPs on this matter.

This is what the union writes to the Prime Minister

“The issue of regulating teachers' working time and remuneration is an urgent problem that has been repeatedly raised during meetings of representatives of the Team for Education, Culture and Sport at the Joint Commission of Government and Local Government (PAP), as well as during the plenary sessions of the Commission. To formulate new solutions in the field of teachers' working conditions and working time, the Team for Teachers' Professional Pragmatics was also established by the minister responsible for education and upbringing, whose work resulted in the hard-to-achieve results. compromises,” we read in the letter.

“Making decisions so important for teachers and local government units in the form of a 'deputy project' is a disregard for the work of people involved in the activities of these bodies and calls into question the validity of their existence,” emphasized the chairman of the Association, Stanisław Jastrzębski.

The Association of Rural Municipalities of the Republic of Poland also noted that the Ministry of National Education has not yet presented any proposal in connection with the resolution of the Supreme Court of February this year, which ruled that work performed in excess of the working time standard specified in the Teacher's Charter is overtime work within the meaning of the Labor Code, and paying for exceeding the working time standards, i.e. overtime, is a rule in the Polish legal system. He said that local governments are receiving further lawsuits for the payment of remuneration with an appropriate allowance for work exceeding the weekly norm, as well as interest on overdue liabilities.

“Now there is a new, surprising promise of payment for hours of readiness to work, without a scrupulous assessment of the financial consequences,” Jastrzębski noted.

“Rural local governments most affected by the crisis related to the demographic decline, often burdened with the most expensive, single-course schools with small classes, are deeply interested in changes in the organization of the education system and call on the Government and the Parliament of the Republic of Poland to seriously talk about its financing,” he added.

Major amendment to the Teacher's Card

Overtime hours are hours of classes or lessons assigned to a teacher in excess of the mandatory working hours, but within a 40-hour working week. They have become famous recently in connection with the so-called a major amendment to the Teacher's Card, which entered into force at the beginning of the 2025/2026 school year. It specifies, among others: cases in which a teacher retains or loses the right to remuneration for assigned but unfulfilled overtime hours.

After the amendment came into force, trade unions argued that a teacher who is at school and is ready to work in accordance with the overtime hours assigned to him does not receive remuneration for them when the class is not at school, e.g. because it is on a trip. The Polish Teachers' Union reported that it received signals from individual schools that teachers or entire teaching staff, as part of professional solidarity, are suspending class trips due to changes in the settlement of overtime hours.

At the end of October, Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced the submission of a parliamentary draft amendment to the Teacher's Charter to the Sejm, according to which, if teachers are ready to work at school and classes are not held for reasons beyond their control, teachers will receive remuneration. The Prime Minister emphasized that there would be no detailed list of cases in which remuneration is due. The bill was submitted on November 4 by a group of MPs from the Civic Coalition. (PAP)

dsr/aba/