Three percent in the budget, one for the rescuers. Poland's maritime SAR pay dispute returns to parliament

Poland's 2026 budget act set a 3 percent wage indexation for the state budgetary sector. Staff at the Maritime Search and Rescue Service were offered something closer to 1 percent. On 14 July, MP Kacper Płażyński filed a parliamentary interpellation to Infrastructure Minister Dariusz Klimczak asking where the difference went. It is the second attempt at the same issue in a month, following a vote lost in the Sejm in June.

maritime economy politics work at mare maritime rescue news

25 july 2026   |   07:45   |   Source: Gazeta Morska   |   Prepared by: Kamil Kusier   |   Print

fot. Kamil Kusier / Gazeta Morska

A dispute over 55 złoty

The dispute did not begin with the interpellation. It has been running inside the Maritime Search and Rescue Service, known in Poland as Służba SAR, since at least the spring, and was documented by the trade union side well before the MP's statement.

The Gdańsk region of the NSZZ Solidarność trade union reported in mid-June that the service's 2026 wage budget did not provide for the 3 percent increase due to the rest of the public sector. Management initially proposed an increase of 35 złoty to base pay. After talks with the unions, the figure rose to 55 złoty, roughly 30 złoty short of what a full indexation would imply for a typical base. Expressed as a percentage, it works out at about 1 percent rather than 3.

That gap is the substance of the case.

Three percent, but of what

The mechanism matters, because it determines whether the MP's charge lands.

The 2026 budget act, passed on 9 January and in force from 20 January, sets the average annual wage growth indicator for the state budgetary sector at 103.0 percent, with increases calculated from 1 January 2026. Deputy Finance Minister Jurand Drop told the Social Dialogue Council that the 3 percent indexation costs the state budget roughly 6.8 billion złoty, with each additional percentage point adding some 2.3 billion.

The indicator, however, applies to an institution's total wage fund rather than to each employee's base salary. A budget holder can distribute the money other than by raising every base proportionally: through promotions, targeted adjustments for selected groups, employer-side payroll costs, bonuses, or filling vacant posts. The fund can grow by 3 percent while an individual rescuer's base pay rises by 1.

The question is therefore not primarily whether the money vanished, because it probably did not. It is what the money was spent on, and who decided.

What the MP is asking

Płażyński framed the interpellation as a demand for figures. He asks how much was transferred to the SAR service for wage growth in 2026 and who took the decision to set the increase at 1 percent. He asks what the difference between the budget indicator and the offer made to staff was used for, listing bonuses, allowances, new posts and severance payments as possibilities. He also asks when the outstanding increases will be paid, whether they will be backdated to 1 January, and whether the ministry will audit how the wage fund was allocated.

The interpellation additionally claims that staff at Poland's maritime offices, which report to the same ministry, received increases matching the full indicator. That assertion comes from the MP and has not been independently confirmed. If it holds, it is the strongest element of the case, because it would point to unequal treatment of bodies within a single ministry.

The same proposal failed twice in June

The interpellation follows a defeat rather than standing alone.

On 18 June, the Sejm's Public Finance Committee and its Maritime Economy and Inland Navigation Committee considered amendments to a government bill on support for shipping companies and on creating conditions for their operation under the Polish flag. An amendment on standby pay was tabled by Krzysztof Szymański of the Confederation party, a graduate of the Gdynia Maritime Academy and a former electro-technical officer in the merchant fleet. Płażyński was among those backing it.

The amendment would have raised remuneration for maintaining readiness to at least 60 percent of the hourly rate derived from an employee's own pay grade. Deputy Infrastructure Minister Arkadiusz Marchewka acknowledged the problem but argued it should be addressed through separate legislation and after consultation with the Finance Ministry, since it would require an additional 12 million złoty a year for the service. The amendment fell in committee by 16 votes to 26.

It returned to the floor the following day and fell again, 207 to 226, with opposition caucuses in favour and the governing coalition against. On the same day, the flag bill itself passed almost unanimously, with 431 votes in favour, four abstentions and none against. It introduces a zero rate of personal income tax for seafarers and for crews of vessels servicing the offshore sector, and widens access to tonnage tax.

Parliament, in other words, found consensus on fiscal incentives for shipowners and merchant seafarers, but no majority for 12 million złoty in standby pay for rescue crews. One reading is procedural, since provisions governing a state budgetary institution are genuinely not the subject matter of a bill on shipping companies. The union side reads it differently.

Standby under the labour code, standby under the maritime work act

The second and considerably older strand of the dispute concerns that standby allowance, and it needs explaining because it is less intuitive than the arithmetic of a pay rise.

A Polish maritime rescuer's day is divided into ten hours of working time and fourteen hours of rescue standby. During those fourteen hours the rescuer must remain on the base, ready to launch.

Under Poland's maritime work act, remuneration for each hour of standby outside working time is set at no less than 18 percent of the hourly rate derived from the statutory minimum wage. At current rates that is about 5.40 złoty an hour. The labour code, by contrast, provides for on-call time outside normal working hours to be paid at the rate arising from the employee's own pay grade, or at 60 percent of remuneration where no such component has been separated out.

The difference runs on two axes at once: the percentage itself, and the base it is calculated from. Eighteen percent of the minimum wage is a different figure entirely from 60 percent of an individual rate.

Unions have pressed the point for more than a decade. In 2022 an equivalent amendment to the maritime work act was assigned a parliamentary print number and never reached the floor. The demand has outlived a change of government without changing status.

Dariusz Słomiński, who chairs the NSZZ Solidarność inter-company commission for maritime services and rescue undertakings and serves at the shore rescue station in Hel, accuses Marchewka of having promised to deliver on the rescuers' demands while in opposition and of having become unreachable since taking office. He also argues that parliament lacks members who understand conditions at sea.

The two strands are worth separating, because they carry different weight and follow different routes. This year's wage fund is an accounting question that a single statement of figures could settle. The standby allowance requires primary legislation, Finance Ministry agreement, and money that was not written into the current budget.

Two systems inside one service

The third layer is structural, and therefore the hardest to fix with a single amendment.

The SAR service operates under two pay regimes at once. Crews of rescue vessels fall under the maritime work act, with standby paid from the minimum wage base. Shore rescue station personnel are paid a monthly base salary supplemented by allowances for on-call duty and for difficult conditions. The duties are comparable, the institution is one, and the money flows along two separate tracks. Unions put it succinctly: one service, two sets of wages.

Layered on top is more than two decades of erosion in relative pay. According to union calculations, when the service was established in 2002 a master's base salary corresponded to roughly three minimum wages. Today it is about one and a half. For a seafarer the ratio stood at 1.8 and now approaches a single minimum wage. This is not the product of one decision or one government, but of twenty years of indexation running slower than the minimum wage.

Fourteen bases, 310 staff, a busier sea

Służba SAR comprises the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre in Gdynia, a secondary coordination centre in Świnoujście, fourteen bases along the coast from Świnoujście to Tolkmicko, a fleet of rescue vessels and shore station crews. It employs around 310 people, some 175 of them at sea. Entry requires a maritime certificate, a series of courses renewed every five years, and physical and psychological fitness tested in practice.

The operational context has hardened in recent years independently of the pay question. Polish waters are now a construction site for offshore wind farms, with rising traffic of offshore support vessels, critical infrastructure on the seabed and elevated tension across the Baltic. Each of those factors raises the likelihood of an incident requiring a rescue response.

The service also has a history of pay disputes settled only under pressure. In 2009, increases of around 30 percent followed industrial action begun that June. In 2021, after months of negotiation and a wave of resignations, an agreement with the unions delivered a base pay rise of 790 złoty net backdated to August, additional funding for incentive and bonus schemes, and a one-off payment of 3,500 złoty gross. The pattern each time was escalation, then talks, then money.

The statutory deadline for answering an interpellation is 21 days from its submission. The Infrastructure Ministry's position should therefore be known around 4 August.

Buy us a coffee, and we’ll invest in great maritime journalism! Support Gazeta Morska and help us sail forward – click here!

Morska Służba Poszukiwania i Ratownictwa podwyżki w budżetówce 2026 interpelacja Kacpra Płażyńskiego ratownictwo morskie ministerstwo infrastruktury

comments

---

enter content

COMMENT

nick