Poland's platform-work bill goes further than Brussels — and inspectors get the power to reclassify
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The News
Poland has published a draft law transposing the EU Platform Workers Directive (Directive (EU) 2024/2831), and it goes well beyond the minimum Brussels set. In a briefing dated 5 October, Eversheds Sutherland notes no member state has yet fully transposed the directive, which must be written into national law by 2 December 2026. Poland's draft — published 6 August by the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy — hands the National Labour Inspectorate an administrative procedure to presume employment status, extends that presumption to intermediaries as well as platforms, and layers on detailed reporting duties. Penalties for data-protection breaches tied to automated systems run to the GDPR ceiling of up to €20m or 4% of worldwide turnover.
Why It Matters
The directive is easy to misread as a gig-economy problem. Eversheds Sutherland flags that any company using websites or apps to organise work — including through automated monitoring or decision-making — can fall within scope. For a TA leader the exposure sits wherever you engage platform workers, contractors or agency staff in the EU: if the employment presumption lands, backdated pay, holiday and tribunal claims follow. Poland's harder line is a preview of how uneven national transposition will be, which means a single EU-wide contractor policy may not hold.
Taking Action
All action is situated in your corporate context. These are starting points, not prescriptions — choose what fits.
Connect
Who to talk with in your enterprise
Your employment counsel and your contingent-workforce lead — map every EU jurisdiction where you engage platform or contract workers and ask what each member state's draft says about the employment presumption and algorithmic-management rules. Flag Poland specifically: its draft lets inspectors trigger reclassification on their own initiative.
Inspect
What to take a closer look at
Inventory the automated systems you use to allocate, monitor or rate platform and contractor work — the directive's algorithmic-management and human-review obligations attach to them. Then test whether you can produce the granular reporting Poland's draft demands (contract type, activity level, intermediaries, income averages) at the required six-month intervals.
Reflect
What to think about more deeply
If a worker is self-employed only until an inspector says otherwise, what is your recruitment actually buying — flexibility, or a deferred employment liability?