The Polish Labour Code (Chapter XI of Act of 26 June 1974) provides legal regulations for collective bargaining in Poland at two levels. The company agreements are negotiated between an employer or one or more regional trade union organisations at company level. The company level remains the predominant level of collective negotiations in Poland.

According to the law, if there is a collective agreement at company level, it covers all the employees. The multi-employment agreements are negotiated between the sectoral or regional trade union organisations and the employer organisation representing a group of employers. In this case the agreement can cover the whole branch, a certain industry, region or the whole country. Depending on this, it covers all employees in that area or branch with no regard for their trade-union membership.

Additionally, some negotiations at the national level take place in the Tripartite Commission for Social Economic Issues, established 1994 and reformed 2001. The main goal of the Commission, consisting of representatives of the nationwide operating and representative trade unions (Solidarity, OPZZ and FZZ), employers (KPP, PKPP Lewiatan, ZRP and BCC) and government, is to discuss and take a position on important social economic issues. Above that, the Tripartite Commission sets the pay increase indicator in companies and in the state budget sector and participates in the preliminary phase of drawing up the state budget.

After the collapse of the central economy system due to political changes in 1989, the legal regulations regarding collective bargaining were completely renewed 1994 and strenghtened 1996. The main goal of the reform was establishing a functioning and autonomous negotiated collective bargaining system in Poland. Estimates show however that after the first wave of collective agreements 1995 – 1999 (more than 10.000 agreements and 10.000 additional protocols to the already existing agreements signed) their number decreased constantly. 2.648 company-level collective agreements covering 121.500 employees were in force in 2007. In case of the multi-employer and sectoral collective bargaining, there were 135 agreements enforced, which concerned 500.000 employees in 3.000 companies. Especially wages, working times and social benefits are subjects of the collective agreements. In some cases the agreements refer to other issues such as training and trade union rights.

The number of signed collective agreements is therefore marginal considering the total number of employees and enterprises. The estimated coverage rate of collective bargaining in Poland is approximately 14 %, between 5.5% in services and 14.4 % in industry. The marginal role of collective agreements is due to the specific historical understanding and structure of Polish industrial relations. Till 1989 there was no real autonomy in collective bargaining due to the lack of independent trade unions; the signed agreements were seen at that time as an instrument of specifying the central economic plans. Afterwards, till the mid 1990s, the wage setting as the most important issue of collective bargaining was blocked through the successful tax policy of defeating the hyperinflation. Moreover, the Polish trade unions are based in enterprises, especially in the former state sector. There are hardly trade unions in the SMEs, which means that there are no trade unions in more than 55% of all enterprises in Poland. After the Polish trade unions have lost 60-70% of their members in the recent 15 years, the membership rate dropped to 13% in 2008 only. Poor organisational structures affect also Polish employers, who hardly understand themselves as an collective barganinig actor and generally prefer direct negotiations with their employees. The rate of 20% of organised employers is the lowest in the EU. In opposite to the trade unions however, the Polish employers are much better organised in SMEs and the private sector. In the former state sector they are hardly organised.

Additionally, although the legal regulations are considered to be a solid base for collective bargaining, the social partners comply on overregulation and complicated law solutions. Especially the detailed regulations on the negotiating process themselves are hard to handle in collective negotiations. The Polish Labour Code, setting miminum standards and individual job contracts remains therefore the main source of labour law. In the result, the practice of collecting negotiations in Poland is hardly functioning.