No decision on increases

On Wednesday, another meeting of the Tripartite Team for Health Care was held, at which the ministry's proposals for amending the law on minimum wages in health care were to be discussed. The meeting lasted more than five hours, but the point related to the main topic was not even started. At the request of the trade unionists, the talks were interrupted and the break will last until March 16.

And the health ministry and employer representatives are talking more or less about the obstructionism used by the unionists, who want the regulations not to change before July 1 (they want them not to change at all, but the operational goal is to force the ministry and the National Health Fund to carry out this year's increases unchanged). The Health Ministry, however, announces that it will manage the amendment in time for the new regulations to take effect before July 1. The labor circles, on the other hand, have announced that they are ready to protest at any time and are already forming protest committees to defend the current form of the law.

Because if the law is amended to the Health Ministry's liking, employees in 2026 will not have guaranteed increases in the minimum wage (which does not mean that at least most of the increases will not be fought out with employers), and subsequent increases will already be strictly valorization in nature, at a level of 2-3 percent per year (depending on the level of inflation and what index for the budget sphere the government prepares).

Before the employees protest, however, representatives of county hospitals and districts will rally in front of the ministry's headquarters on March 3, demanding (among other things) changes to the increase law, which not only, in their view, ruins the system's and hospitals' budgets, but also - especially in county Poland - distorts the labor market, as medical entities offer salary conditions unattainable for other public institutions (for example, those operating in the area of social welfare).