(en) IWA External Bulletin #8* - Keeping the Pressure on Impuls

In past issues of the IWA Bulletin we told about the situation of workers from Impuls work 
agency who organized in ZSP and fought to get unpaid wages. Through direct action, we have 
been able to get payments for a lot of workers already, well over 14,000 euros and still 
counting. But the company still exists and owe workers money. So we are still fighting. 
---- Part of the fight in also to provide legal help to workers who would like to claim a 
working relationship with the agency. This is because without this, the workers were being 
paid a sub-minimum wage of about 80 eurocents per hour. And even this they were not 
receiving. Court decisions about the working relationship would mean that workers could 
claim the minimum wage for the period they worked, paid vacation, etc.

We also have widened the struggle to one against the sub-minimum wage in general and 
against the contracting practices of publically funded entities which used the firm. We 
are trying to put pressure on them to hire directly and, if any short-term work has to be 
done by a contractor, that one of the tender criteria by adherence to the labor law and 
guaranteed minimum wage.

We found that in the case of a recent public tender, Impuls won because it gave an 
extremely low bid, with price being the main criteria. The bid was so low that it was less 
than the price of the next lowest. So it should have been perfectly clear that the workers 
could not be paid even a small fraction of the minimum wage with that bid. In fact, the 
workers were paid exactly nothing. We have been drawing

public attention to these practices and putting pressure on the public sector not to use 
companies like this.

After our successful campaign, the company lost about 75% of its contracts. But it is 
finding new ones by the methods described above. It also uses different companies to sign 
new contracts.

Fighting against the Bosses' Repression

We are happy to inform that one case against our comrade is over. He was being sued by a 
hospital director who was accused of sexual molestation by workers. Our comrade was the 
one sued because it was on a webpage whose domain was registered by him. We do not give 
the names of workers to the bosses if they require anonymity. He will not have to pay 
anything to the director in the end.

It is important in situations like rape and sexual molestation at work where the victims 
are often blamed and are treated very badly when they report the situation that there are 
some ways for them to warn other workers.

We thank comrades from around the world that supported us in this case.

Another Boss Tries to Repress

BRW furniture fired our comrade last year for exposing violations of workers rights and we 
responded with some pickets, articles, etc. They paid satisfactory compensation rather 
quickly. Since that time, they have been trying to find some way to repress us. They tried 
getting the ?economic crimes? division of the Prosecutor's office after us, but nothing 
came out of this. Now there are some new complaints against us. But we have good evidence 
about all we have ever said about the company. So if they want to try us, we'd be glad to 
remind the public of what went on in their furniture factory. Plus we can add information 
about the working conditions of people employed through temporary work agencies in their 
shops.

zsp.net.pl

* www.iwa-ait.org/sites/default/files/documents/iwa_external_bulletin_no.8_june_2014.pdf