IWA External Bulletin #8* - Campaign at Supermarket Wins Overtime Payments and Other Improvements

Dino supermarkets now have to be very careful to evidence working time correctly and pay 
workers all the overtime due to them. This is one of the things which has been gained 
through the campaign at the chain. ---- Since January 2014, ZSP has been fighting against 
dismissals, unpaid overtime, health and safety violations and other problems at Dino 
supermarkets around Poland. ---- Problems at Dino started late last year when workers 
tried to unionize to improve problems in their workplace. Dino them dismissed a dozen 
members of the union, either for bogus disciplanary reasons or by not extending their 
contracts. Some workers were fired for liking the union FB page or writing critical 
comments on the working conditions on the internet.

It should be said that this first union was not ours, but Solidarity. But when the union 
refused to fight for the reinstatement of some workers and tried to convince them not to 
protest and stay quiet, people joined us instead. Now we are meeting more and more workers 
in towns around Poland who want to join in the campaign and do something about violations 
in their shops, or fight against dismissals or unpaid overtime. So far a couple of dozens 
of protests have taken place at various shops around the country, including in Wroclaw, 
Kutno, Ornontowice, Pabianice, Lask, Inowroclaw, Ostrow Wielkopolski, Dopiewo and 
Skarbimierz. In a number of these cities, workers who were unfairly dismissed called the 
protests and in some cities new violations came to light. ZSP has been inviting workers to 
join and offers help in evidencing working time and claiming for unpaid overtime. 
Currently there are also court cases for unfair dismissal, discrimination against unions, 
and violation of the working rights of the handicapped.

As all bosses who do things like this, Dino denies that there are any problems, so we have 
been collecting evidence and asked the State Labour Inspectorate to investigate and verify 
the claims. Many shops were inspected and the Inspectorate confirmed dozens of violations. 
In this way, Dino was also forced to stop their practices related to unpaid overtime. 
However, many workers are still owed money from the past.

A typical problem for workers in such situations is how to prove this. Awareness of the 
issue and knowing that there are others fighting for the overtime can help. Now some 
former managers and assistant managers are ready to help the workers. Quite interestingly, 
after our action in Dopiewo, the manager there quit and wrote an expose for us about how 
she was instructed to act towards the workers.

In one court case, a former assistant manager testified about how Dino denied workers with 
dis-abilities their overtime payments. According to Polish law, such workers cannot be 
forced to work overtime or at night (after 22:00), so a higher-up at Dino instructed the 
management to record the working time as 8 hours each time, regard-less of when the work 
actually ended. And they usually had to work some time extra on most days.

The campaign is continuing, as are the cases against the market. Unfortunately one case 
for reinstate- ment did not go well in court, with a union-hating judge who would not 
consider the possibility that ending a contract was equal to a dismissal, despite the fact 
this is a common way of getting rid of union members. We see this as a major issue in 
union discrimination, as a huge percent of workers have fixed-term and civil contracts 
and, although there is not supposed to be discrimination between these categories of 
workers, the judges usually act as if workers on fixed-term contracts have no rights. For 
this reason, we are going to push this issue. In the meanwhile, we are picketing shops, 
going in them and investigating, talking to workers and we won't stop until the situation 
in the market improves and the company stops making reprisals against workers.

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