Pracujesz na umowie śmieciowej? Możemy pomóc!
Warsaw University outsources its cleaning work and at the campus on Zwirki and Wigury St., a company called EVER is used. Before the last public tender, EVER employed 18 people there; until last week there were only 11 and these people, all with disabilities, had to do the same work as 18. However, this was not the only problem: a new supervisor came who started to harrass the workers, using insulting and discrimatory language and constantly harrassing them.
The cleaners decided that they would like to organize and do something about this situation. The bosses of EVER wrote some contradictory things to the Warsaw union – on the one hand claiming the workers were „lying”, on the other hand claiming they are looking for a resolution to the conflict. The day after we received this letter, repression started against the workers in the form of splitting them up and sending them to work in different places, despite the fact that many had worked in the University for years. We consider this a typical union-busting move.
Many of the workers went on medical leave due to the stress of this bullying and repression. The demands were to stop the harrassment, bring back the workers to the original workplace, fire the mobbing supervisor and hire more people.
It should be noted that hiring more people is no real cost to EVER because in Poland, workplaces supported by PFRON – which provides subsidies for hiring people with disabilities – cover up to 75-90% of the workers' salary. In other words, taxpayers are paying these salaries – not the companies supposedly hiring them.
On December 13, employees of EVER who worked at Warsaw University's ZW Campus held a protest. The security of the university forced the workers off the campus. In addition, EVER sent some shady „psychologists” to the campus. These „doctors” corned a group of workers who were on the way to the protest with signs they had made. Apparently the job of the „psychologists” was to scare and manipulate the workers. It was unclear what they did but they put pressure on a group of workers to meet with the psychologists. They also came out to the workers at the protest and ordered them (not asked) to come meet with them. So clearly, the „psychologists” were part of the harrassment process and they tried to signal that the workers needed „psychological counselling” because they were protesting. This was extremely insulting so everybody, so we decided to make our way back on campus, despite the heavy security which had earlier thrown the workers out.
For the International Week Against Unpaid Wages, we distribute this guide for English-speaking workers.
On October 5, ZSP held a picket at a Zabka convenience store at Malczewskiego St. 85 in Gdansk. A worker from that store was illegally employed and not paid all his money. The worker is a 17-year-old high school student who came to Poland from Ukraine due to the war and started work at 16 years old. He was working without a contract; only later, the Zabka agent drew one up. According to our calculations, he was owed 2600 zloties. In a discussion with the agent (owner of the store), she claimed that since she paid a fine imposed by the State Labor Inspectorate „what did we want”? Later she admitted that she owed the worker money, but claimed that the amount only totals 1655 zloties.
We asked the boss to pay the money to the worker. Instead, she refused to talk to us during the picket and hired a lawyer who tried to disturb the protest by acting agressively towards the picketers, filming them and screaming that we are „liars” and „have no proof”. (Except for the documents and the admission of the boss that she owes money, although less than we calculated.) We were quite shocked by the behaviour of somebody claiming to be a lawyer and on checking who she was, we were astounded to find out that for the last 20 years, she has been the Chairperson of an Anti-Mobbing Association, claiming to fight against mobbing in the workplace. It was even more astounding for this that this person was basically calling the victim of wage theft a liar in a public space but refused to even listen to a word that person had to say and completely ignored him.
Pyszne is a large food-delivery service in Poland, which ZSP has opened a labor conflict with. It involves current workers but also a few, including our member, who were fired for discussing and criticizing working conditions. A group of workers, including two who were fired and one who currently receives no hours on the app, have established a list of demands to the company. They are:
* Reinstatement and an end to discrimination of workers on the basis of their opinion and labor activity.
* Withdrawal of changes in the working conditions which have led to the increased precarization of food delivers
* Implementing guaranteed hours. Pyszne promises it in recruitment advertisement but doesn't deliver.
* Giving couriers who are already employed priority in getting hours or changing their zones instead of always hiring more and more people
*An increase in the extra payment made for couriers, especially who ride their own scooters because the payment they currently receive does not cover the costs of use and maintainence
A protest will be held at the Warsaw Hub of Pyszne.
It is worth noting that this is not a small company. It is owned by the international listed company Just Eat Takeaway. This international group of food-delivery service operates around the world under different brand names: in France, Ireland, Spain and the UK it is known as Just Eat; in Austria and Germany, Lieferando; in the US as GrubHub; in Slovakia as bistro.sk; in Canada as SkiptheDishes; in Australia as Menulog and in Colombia it is in partnership with Ifood.
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!
On June 8, the ZSP Warsaw took part as a co-organizer of the Praga Equality Parade, together with Praga Equality collective, the Abortion Dream Team, the Tenants' Defense Committee and the Youth Climate Strike. Members of We Parents and Homokomando also joined in the parade.
The Praga Equality Parade was the first parade of 3 occuring in Pride Month in Warsaw. It marched through the working-class neighbourhoods of Praga North and South. ZSP had a banner saying „There is no Equality in Capitalism” and handed out leaflets with our anti-capitalist position and information about our booklet on fighting for your rights in the workplace that focuses also on the particular problems of queer people on the labour market.
Due to historical reasons, there is a certain fear of Russia amongst the population. For years this fear was somewhat subdued although always present in Poland's defense strategy. However, since the beginning of the latest war in Ukraine, militaristic mood has increased dramatically, as has a general support for defense spending and increased militarization of the country.
Poland, as a NATO member with borders on Ukraine, Russia and Belarus has played an active role in urging more aggressive action towards Russia (and, to a lesser extent, Belarus), not only in domestic policy, but also in the European Union and NATO.
Military expenditure has more than doubled between 2022 and 2023 and is currently the highest it has ever been. In terms of percentage of gross domestic product, in 2023, Poland had the highest expenditure in the European Union and has one of the highest percentages in the world, surpassing even the United States. (Only Ukraine, Russia and Israel, as well as Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Kuwait have a higher percentage.)
Although the government tries very hard to convince the world that Poland is a very prosperous country, manipulating statistics to claim that an unrealistically low level of income is possible to survive on, thus setting the official poverty level well below what is needed to survive, the fact is that due to rising prices, more and more people are barely able to make ends meet. While the government pumps more and more money into military expenditure, constantly pointing to the immense threat posed by Russia, large areas of the public budget is underfinanced. There never seems to be enough money to give raises to essential workers such as nurses, teachers and other school and hospital personnel, who often organize strikes and protests demanding increases to their scandalously low salaries, which usually fall below the average pay and sometimes are not too much above minimum. Working class families are hit especially hard as many cannot afford the private medical care that many wealthier people use to avoid long queues at public health facilities. Worse yet, extreme poverty amongst senior citizens is growing rapidly and in the near future will explode as pensions drop significantly for large parts of the population.
Zabka is a chain of convenience stores with over 9000 shops in Poland and shops in the Czech Republic, making it one of the largest convenience store chains in Europe and a major employer in Poland. Unfortunately, it seems like many Zabka franchisees have absolutely no regard for workers' rights and are wage thieves. ZSP has already held numerous successful actions against these stores throughout Poland.
The situation at the Zabka shop on Pulawska St. 116 was particularly heinous for us. The action concerned two workers who were owed over 30,000 zloties (about 7400 euros) from the thieving boss but after the protest, another former worker contacted us and wants to join. The boss did not legally employ them, providing no contract and circumventing all statutory requirements. They had to work too many overtime hours including illegally on Sunday. The workers are underage teenagers who were in a desperate life situation and didn't know what to do. To make matters even worse, before leaving work, when one of the workers confronted the boss, he beat him.
We sent a demand letter and organized a picket. Just before the protest started, the owner ran away. We entered the shop to demand to talk to the owner, but he was not to be found there. The protest lasted over one hour and drew a lot of sympathetic responses from neighbors. Since the owner does not want to face us, we will be returning twice next week and we will keep going until everything is paid.
In the meantime, we note the non-reaction of the Zabka company to the numerous incidents that happen in their franchises. Although the franchise agreements specify numerous things that franchisees must do, ranging from the look of the shops to the way things are put on the shelves, apparently respecting workers is not one of them.
The ZSP Warsaw delivered a demand letter to the cafe at SWPS University. The cafe was often in arrears paying workers and had other abusive practices. Finally there was a conflict and the worker was left without pay. We union has seen many cases where the rights of students who are working are abused and we advise people to get organized and fight back!
This year, the annual IWA Week of Action against Unpaid Wages will be held from October 16-22. ZSP will be participating in a number of ways, including a direct action, an informational campaign and open advisories.
(Information on some past actions of the union in English can be found here: https://zsp.net.pl/zsp-continues-take-action-against-unpaid-wages or https://zsp.net.pl/zsp-fighting-back-international-week-action-against-u...)
Since these articles have been published, we have held numerous successful actions against unpaid wages. The most notable concern the largest chain of convenience stores in Poland, Zabka. (See, for example, here: https://zsp.net.pl/more-pickets-zabka-convenience-stores-highlight-syste...). With the Zabka chain we see very widespread incidents of abuse, perhaps on an unprecented scale in this country. The chain currently has approximately 9000 stores in Poland and while some of them offer normal work contracts, many do not even give workers any contracts at all. In the situation with Zabka, every worker that has taken action to receive their wages instead of giving up has been able to receive them. This is already more than a dozen in the past 2-3 years. However, we know this is only the tip of the iceberg because, despite logic, there are many out there that are robbed but don't do anything about it.
Another wage theft situation which we recently won was with Granos bookseller. The affected worker received a quite significant sum of money. This was our second victory against this wage thief and we know that there were other victims. This situation seriously affected his business to the point where he needs to shut it down. Good riddance to thieving bosses!
