Volunteering as a form of employment by parishes on the example of church musician

Abstract

This article attempts to face the legal assessment of the practice of employing volunteers for the position of church musician (organist) by Roman Catholic parishes in Poland. Formally, such contracts assume that an obvious fiction boiling down to unreal statement that a full-time organist in a parish church as a volunteer does not receive any remuneration either from the parish or any third parties. What is important, the volunteering contract allows parishes to significantly limit fixed labour costs related to withholding income tax or social security/health insurance contributions, which makes it quite an attractive form of cooperation from the parish’s perspective. The legislation of the Public Benefit and Volunteer Work Act lays down that a Roman Catholic parish may be a beneficiary of volunteer work, but it is mandatory for the said parish to hold the status determining as one of its aims also public benefit activity. From the canon and secular laws’ perspectives, formation of a parish does not depend on the fact if it holds a statute regulating the functioning of this church legal entity. In the tradition of the Catholic church in Poland, as a rule parishes are not granted statutes (as of 5th February 2019, the National Court Register lists only one Roman Catholic parish submitted as a public benefit organisation), which leads to the conclusion that this circumstance is a determinant of lack of possibility to employ volunteers. Due to the above, in order for a parish to benefit from volunteers’ work it is necessary to enact a statute providing for public benefit activity beside pastoral work. However, eliminating the subjective obstacle related to the status of a parish as an entity entitled to benefit from volunteering work does not exclude obstacles related to the substance of voluntarism narrowing down to unpaid work of a volunteer. Concluding from the above, employment of volunteers by parishes to perform regular job activities on the position of an organist in a parish church has to be deemed non-compliant with the ­legislation of the generally applicable state and canon laws.