The ZSP has been in conflict with quite a number of Zabka convenience stores. Many of the franchise's agents engage in abusive labor practices and sometimes do not pay workers what they have been owed. ZSP has been successful in helping workers recover stolen wages and other matters concerning the chain.

Recently workers from two Zabka stores (with the same owner) were not paid. Some workers tried to notify authorities but of course they did nothing. This situation concerned 13 people in the two stores. When we investigated it turned out not only did some workers not get paid for two months but also some of them had no contract at all, were illegally employed, had no social security contributions made, etc. It took a little while to decide on what action to take because some workers were hesitant, preferring perhaps to wait for authorities: a really bad mistake from our experience. Finally we decided that we would take action with only a few of the workers but the two shops had been close so it was decided that we would go to the home of the owner. Having visited this location beforehand, neighbours described how the woman was seen fleeing a couple of days earlier. It was not clear whether she escaped or would be back. It appeared that she might have decided to run away and not pay anybody.

This reminds us of a couple of other situations we have seen as we had once boss run off to Spain and another to the US. However, in a very astounding coincidence, on the same week that the situation with the Zabka owner occured, we found out that the workers whose boss had ran away to America some years ago, finally got paid!

When the boss ran away to America, we did our best to alert people in that country by various means. We also for some time kept writing about it on our media and forums in Poland. Some time ago, this creep has his lawyer write us a threatening letter demanding we removing references to him but we refused, pointing out that he was in fact a criminal and we had a duty to warn workers or potential business partners against him. Finally, we found out that the missing boss finally made workers – something we did not really expect at that point. It just goes to show that it is worth pursuing conflicts even if it starts to look very difficult to accomplish your aims.

This is that Zabka bosses and run but will not be able to hide forever! We will make sure this information follows the boss forever, until she pays up what is owed!