The plan was presented in Warsaw by the president of the ZNP, Sławomir Broniarz, and vice-president Urszula Woźniak. The union is to provide its structures with ready-made letters for school principals. They are intended to remind us about the rules for organizing trips and the right of teachers to remuneration for work that exceeds applicable standards.
ZNP members will receive an anonymous survey thanks to which they will be able to assess whether they have grounds to make a claim. Claims are to cover a period of up to three years back.
It also lists very precisely what evidence you need to have to apply for payment, emphasized Woźniak.
The union then plans to organize a consultation week. Teachers will be able to review their situation with a lawyer or trained person. The next step will be demands for payment, and if they prove ineffective, lawsuits. The ZNP also announces monitoring of possible retaliatory actions against teachers.
Woźniak recalled that in February 2025, the Supreme Court found that a teacher's work beyond the norm specified in the Teacher's Charter constitutes overtime within the meaning of the Labor Code.
According to art. 42 of the Teacher's Charter, the working time of a full-time teacher may not exceed 40 hours per week. This limit includes not only lessons, but also, among others: care and educational tasks, preparation for classes and professional development.
The problem concerns, among others: work during trips and the so-called green schools when teachers supervise students outside standard hours. After the Supreme Court's resolution, the Ministry of National Education announced an analysis of the case and possible statutory changes. As the ZNP points out, the regulations regarding the status of school trips have still not been clarified.
An additional impetus for action will be - according to the union - the Act on Patriotic Education, which obliges schools to organize trips, among others. to historical places.
Sławomir Broniarz also commented on the citizens' project to amend the Teacher's Charter, submitted by the Polish Teachers' Union in 2021. The project assumes linking teachers' salaries with the average salary in the economy.
The first reading of the project took place in 2024. The last meeting of the parliamentary subcommittee dealing with this matter took place in March 2025.
Unfortunately, nothing has happened since then. Nothing happened and we are convinced that the parliamentary majority, which supported our initiative in 2023, is today trying to hide its head in the sand, trying to pretend that nothing is happening in this matter, or is trying to wait out this problem, believing that perhaps the upcoming elections will sort of spontaneously close the problem - he emphasized.
The ZNP intends to address this matter to the Ministry of National Education, the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Finance, the Speaker of the Sejm and members of parliament and committees working on the project. The association wants to obtain information, among others: about the schedule for further work.
In October, the ZNP also plans to conduct a study assessing changes in the core curriculum and educational policy. Teachers are also to be asked about possible behavior in the context of the parliamentary elections.
