I’ve always thought it’s not fair that bosses expect workers to come in 20-30 minutes earlier to for example clean the shop before opening, or stay after closing hours to count the money and stuff – but you don’t get paid for that time?? Half an hour every day might not be “that much” but after months of working like this it adds up.

I found [this article](https://www.infor.pl/prawo/praca/czas-pracy/5322119,Czas-pracy-od-kiedy.html), which states that any such actions count as work hours that you should be getting compensated for, including changing clothes into official work uniform because it’s for your employer.

So that’s the law. Now, what’s your reality?

3 comments

  1. Correct, you should get paid for that time, as you are still working.
    Furthermore, if you’re a regular employee (not a contractor), and this extends over your agreed Full Time Equivalent (1 FTE = 40h/week), you should get the overtime wage.

  2. I can say that officially, it’s required to be compensated for on typical full time contract types. In my experience though, you absolutely have to fight any corporation to actually recognize that and pay it out. Having worked for quite a few large multinationals with branches in Poland, the biggest pushback I got on it was invariably from leadership sitting in the US or Western European countries who don’t think it should be compensated and have little regard for Polish law. At one of my previous companies, the problem was so bad that some of the employees threatened legal action as a group and I’m talking about highly skilled white collar workers.

  3. In our workplace if you come 15 minutes earlier, you get paid for that as well or you can leave those 15 minutes and leave earlier.

    I’m guessing if my company could get away with not paying us they would.

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