Employers with trade unions, including clients of our PRWT accounting office, are required to consult the intention to terminate an employee’s contract with the trade unions that represent the employee. In practice, this situation may give rise to many practical problems. We will present one of them below.

An employer who intends to terminate an employment contract with an employee without notice, requests trade unions to provide information on the use of trade union protection by the employee.

In response, the unions inform the employer that they do not have the employee’s consent to process his personal data.

What should the employer do in this situation? Should the trade unions be notified of the intention to terminate the employment contract with the employee, or should the employee be provided with a statement of termination of the contract, recognizing the consultation with the trade unions as completed at this stage?

According to Art. 52 pairs 3 of the Labor Code (appropriate  pursuant to Art. 53 par. 4 of the Labor Code) in the event of the desire to apply Art. 53 of the Labor Code (termination of the employment contract without observing the notice period), trade unions should be consulted. Therefore, despite receiving an evasive response from the trade unions, the employer cannot stop at asking about the use of their defense by the employee.

Trade unions must be notified of the intention to terminate the contract (with reason) before it is handed over to the employee. Then you have to wait for the trade unions to respond (they have no more than 3 days for it) and then you can hand in a statement on termination of the employment contract.