Trade, services and gastronomy businesses located in shopping centres and malls were the first to feel the effects of the pandemic and the restrictions related to it. From one day to the next, the market in which these companies operated ceased to exist.

– The new association represents more than 100 retail and service companies employing nearly 200,000 people. It consists exclusively of Polish companies, from the largest (LPP, CCC) to quite small ones. We want to publicise the association’s demands ahead of the debate on the special aid act. Our guiding slogan is: Let’s save jobs – says Artur Kuczyński, president of Szachownica, whose headquarters are in Bolesławiec.

– Our employees (nearly 500 people at JOART S.A.) were deprived of the ability to work from one day to the next. We do not know how long this situation will last, we do not know what the details of the “aid shield” will be, and we are unable to draw up realistic scenarios for the future – adds Artur Kuczyński.

The association’s members want their demands to be publicised among society and decision-makers, MPs, senators and councillors. We present these demands below:

Demands of the Association of Polish Retail and Service Employers

Protecting jobs

  1. Government participation in covering employee remuneration costs at a level of at least 80% of base pay during the mandatory closure of shopping centres and during the period of recovery from the pandemic.
  2. Allowing the employer to:
    1. reduce working hours together with a proportional reduction in pay,
    2. introduce the possibility of extending the working-time settlement period to 12 months (including under the equivalent working-time system) by the employer’s decision without consultation with employees.
  3. Covering sick pay from the first day of sick leave and deferring repayment of ZUS contributions accrued during the period of the epidemic threat by six months.

Maintaining liquidity

  1. Abolishing rent charges for tenants during the closure of shopping centres and for the following six months after their reopening, with tenants covering operating costs once the shopping centres reopen.
  2. Deferring, for landlords, repayments of loans and interest incurred to purchase or build a shopping centre by the period during which tenants are exempt from rent.
  3. Exempting landlords from tax liabilities for the period of the rent amnesty. Introducing cash-based VAT and CIT accounting for landlords for the following six months.
  4. Developing solutions, including government guarantees, for companies whose liquidity has been threatened by lower sales during the pandemic, obliging banks to provide long-term working-capital loans based on results from 2019 and 2018, and to provide appropriate financial instruments, including bank guarantees and letters of credit, to secure settlements with contractors in international and domestic relations.
  5. Exempting the retail and services sector from ZUS contributions for the period during which shopping centres are closed.
  6. Exempting the retail and services sector from CIT, PIT and VAT taxes assessed for the period during which shopping centres are closed.

Social issues

  1. The possibility of temporarily suspending all or part of a company’s operations, with a guarantee of funding from public resources.
  2. The possibility of including all types of donations to entities taking action to combat coronavirus among tax-deductible costs.
  3. Removing barriers to receiving public aid.
  4. Suspending legal provisions that impose civil, criminal and administrative liability on representatives of debtors and the debtors themselves for failing to submit on time an application for bankruptcy (or another application that an insolvent or insolvency-threatened debtor is obliged to submit), particularly Article 21(3) of the Act of 28 February 2003, Bankruptcy Law – consolidated text: Journal of Laws of 2019, item 498, as amended; Article 373 § 1 of the Bankruptcy Law, Article 299 § 1 and 3 of the Commercial Companies Code, Article 586 of the Commercial Companies Code, and Article 116 of the Tax Ordinance).

Details on the website of the Association of Polish Retail and Service Employers.