Ordinal responsibility of employees is one of three types of responsibility that rests with the employee. It includes the employee’s compliance with the established organization and order in the work process, occupational health and safety regulations, fire protection regulations, as well as the adopted method of confirming arrival and presence at work and justifying absence from work. Its premises are guilt (understood in the civil sense) and illegality of the violation. When imposing a penalty, the employee’s previous attitude to work is also taken into account. For the above-mentioned violations, the employer may impose a warning or a reprimand. In addition, for the employee’s failure to comply with occupational health and safety regulations or fire protection regulations, leaving work without justification, reporting to work in a state of intoxication or after using alcohol or a substance with a similar effect to alcohol, or drinking alcohol or taking a substance with a similar effect to alcohol during work – the employer may also apply a financial penalty. Its amount in the case of one exceedance or for each day of unjustified absence may not exceed the amount of one month’s salary. In total, financial penalties may not exceed a tenth of the employee’s salary to be paid, reduced by mandatory deductions from remuneration for work, indicated in art. 87 of the Labor Code.
The procedure for applying penalties is as follows. A penalty may not be applied after 2 weeks from the date of receiving information about the violation of an employee’s obligation and after 3 months from the date of committing such violation. In the event of an employee’s absence, the two-week period is suspended and begins upon their reporting to work. A penalty may be applied only after previously hearing the employee. The employer is obliged to notify the employee in writing about the application of the penalty. They must indicate the type of violation, its date and inform the employee of the right to object and the deadline for its effective filing. The notification is filed in the employee’s personal file. If the penalty was applied in violation of the law, the employee may file an objection within 7 days from the date of notification of the penalty. The employer decides whether to uphold or reject the objection after considering the position of the trade union representing the employee. Failure to reject the objection within 14 days of the date of its filing is equivalent to the objection being upheld. The employee who filed the objection may, within 14 days (the final deadline according to the Supreme Court) from the date of notification of the rejection of the objection, apply to the labor court to have the penalty applied against them annulled, however, according to the Supreme Court case law, the employer does not have to advise them of this. If the objection to the applied fine is upheld or the penalty is annulled by the labor court, the employer is obliged to return the equivalent of the penalty to the employee. The penalty is erased after one year of impeccable work. The employer may, on its own initiative or at the request of the trade union representing the employee, recognize the penalty as non-existent before the expiry of this period.