When did I stop doing overtime?
When my children started to call me "grandma".
You go home, you do something with your child
and it says to you: "Grandma... I mean... mom!".
I say: "Son, it's alright".
He: "I'm sorry". I say: "Nothing happened, right? Did you forget?"
"Yes", he says, "I forgot, because grandma is always with us. You are not here".
I ask: "But do you know why I'm gone?"
"I know, you have to work, everyone works. When I get old I will also work."
You commute to work every day and come back so late,
you don't have time for your family.
You get paid 300 euros.
What can you do with that? What can you buy with that?
That's why I can barely get up in the mornings to go to work.
Lech Walesa wants us to celebrate the anniversary of the August 1980 demands
as a national holiday.
But what's left of those demands?
For him it's just another occasion to drink cognac and smoke cigars with his buddies.
And the masses? They are supposed to work and sweat.
What they said at different workplaces,
we've also heard from our leader.
I remember it exactly, she said in front of everyone:
"If you don't like it here, get the fuck out."
Special Exploitation Zones
At the end of the 1980s, the process of transition to a market economy began in Poland.
The issues of debt accumulated by the People's Republic of Poland
and that of finding new credit in order to finance structural reforms
played an important role in the transition process.
Western governments, banks and international corporations
imposed a series of terms, including the elimination of large work units,
especially in heavy industry.
"The most significant question is,
whether Poles will agree to reduce their standards of living
to ensure the stability of the country."
Their aim was to limit the competition of Polish state enterprises on Western markets
and to eliminate the arms industry in countries of the dissolving Eastern block.
At stake in this game was also the opening access
to local markets for Western investors.
Under these conditions a program of market reforms was set up, called "shock therapy",
that lead to the failure, elimination or privatization
of state industries and agriculture.
I have lists of people who are going to be sacked.
It's more than 600-650 people.
In the last year, colleagues were fired.
They lost their benefits. How can they survive?
- I believe, that was done deliberately.
- But that's conspiracy theory!
It's not conspiracy theory.
How can one declare the failure of a company
that made 100 billion zlotys for the state last year?
The collapse of this company is going to cost the ministry of Mr. Miller
about 40 billion zlotys.
- But it's not just Diora! The entire electronic industry is failing!
So that must be a strategic mistake of the government.
It is not just us who went bankrupt!
Please go and ask around Poland, what's going on, why is this all happening?
The "shock therapy" increased unemployment and poverty.
From 1989 to 2011 the number of workplaces decreased by almost 6 million.
We used to have an industrial zone in our town of Nowa Ruda:
the Diora factory, a coal mine, a big textile factory.
At that time, if you finished at 10 p.m. it was difficult to get through the streets.
So many people from this region worked here.
In the 1990s, after the political system shifted,
a massive privatization took place, and the industries were closed down.
The Diora radio plant was the first to go.
The year of 1997 was a difficult for us, as Zbyszek didn't work in the mine any longer.
So I started looking for work.
It was very difficult then.
If you found work it felt like winning the lottery.
Friends of mine offered me a job in their store.
As I had no other options I agreed,
although the wage was very low: 82 euros a month.
You could call that exploitation: I worked 8 hours, full-time,
but only had a part-time contract, for a 4-hour job.
10 years later I had had enough. I was tired of it and, eventually, quit.
I looked for work and found jobs,
in the Chung Hong factory in the zone, and in a corner store.
I no longer wanted to work in sales,
especially since it was again only part-time work, so I went to work for Chung Hong.
I worked in the Diora plant, and I got my children, altogether 4.
The factory was closed down long ago.
I went to work for a short time, in a bar.
Unfortunately it was work under the table.
Then I found a job in the Czech Republic.
I got hired there, but the wage was poor, and they paid a piece-rate.
The work involved retrieving buttons and zips from old clothes.
I had to fill bags, so that each bag would weigh 20 kilo.
It depended on the kind of textile: I had to do 23 bags if it was cotton,
and 13 bags if it was shirts.
It was really difficult.
The highest wage I got was 150 euros.
With that I also had to pay for commuting to the Czech Republic.
I had no choice but to quit.
Then I got the job in the zone.
I worked in a kitchen.
Later it got difficult finding a job, so I accepted a cleaning job.
I worked for only a year.
Later I got pregnant with my son.
When the maternity leave was over, my contract was not prolonged.
That way I ended up at Chung Hong.
I'm 33 years old, but I have always been working only very short periods:
for 3 months, 5 months.
Later, I was was doing work training through the employment office,
but only for half a year.
Then I had a short contract to replace a colleague.
So I did only short-time work.
I was also at home a lot,
as I gave birth to my daughter and brought her up myself
because it was not possible to find her a kindergarten.
There are no day nurseries in the region.
So I had to stay home.
High unemployment, repressive social policies and uncertain forms of employment
forced masses of people to accept work with the worst conditions or to emigrate.
Using market reforms successive governments began changing the state and social sphere,
i.e. they reformed the health services, the retirement system and the eduction system.
Neoliberal reforms transferred management concepts based on markets and private companies
to the management of state and society.
This lead to restrictions of civil rights and social benefits
as well as the elimination of preschools, schools or hospitals,
that benefit everyone and are necessary in everyday life.
The costs of maintaining collective goods
and the responsibility for care and reproduction
rested on individual households and the shoulders of women.
These changes especially deteriorated the situation of women
from low and middle income households.
In 1994, the parliament enacted a law on Special Economic Zones (SEZ)
which were supposed to be an answer to the crisis in industry and in the job market.
The SEZ are specific areas where investors
are exempt from paying income tax and receive other public support.
The companies that manage the SEZs also benefit from tax exemptions.
The first SEZs were opened in the second half of the 1990s,
on the ruins of old enterprises.
In the following years, inside the SEZs assembly factories or business centers were opened
which were integrated into global production networks.
Our proposal is to prolong the existence of the SEZs
and to found an attractive investment area in every municipality.
Currently there are 14 SEZs in Poland
and hundreds of subzones, established upon the wishes of investors.
The subzone Kobierzyce [Southwest Poland], where the Chung Hong factory is located,
is a subzone of the SEZ Tarnobrzeg [Southeast Poland].
The SEZ Tarnobrzeg was established
while the mines and sulfur processing plants in Tarnobrzeg were closed,
leading to a significant increase of unemployment and to social protests in the region.
The SEZ "Euro-Park Wislosan" in Tarnobrzeg offers investors the best location.
We also offer the lowest costs.
In all its subzones, especially in Tarnobrzeg and Nowa Deba,
investors will be welcome supported by the local authorities.
The SEZS are organized by the "Industrial Development Agency"
which belongs to the State Treasury and makes profits by managing public wealth.
The SEZs have their own sector of services and a political lobby
made up of the companies that manage the SEZs,
temporary work agencies, companies offering intermediation in negotiations with the authorities,
legal consulting, managerial services, promotion and political marketing.
One of them is JP Weber, a Wroclaw based law firm
which specializes in complex legal consulting, including suppressing worker's protests.
The European center of television and monitor production for the LG corporation
is located in the subzone Kobierzyce near Wroclaw.
9 factories have been built inside the SEZ so far,
the majority of which produce for LG.
Opening factories in the SEZ allowed the company
to reduce custom's duties, transport costs and supplies.
75% of LG's production in Poland is based on components
produced by suppliers from Korea and China.
Like other companies, LG does not pay taxes on its income in the SEZ,
thus it does not contribute to maintain social resources or infrastructure
which it uses.
With its low salaries and the temporary employment
LG does not improve the living conditions in the region either.
I got hired in the (Chung Hong-)factory through a friend.
Before that, I did an internship in a factory producing stuffed cabbage.
Catering is my profession, but they really exploited the people there.
So I decided to look for another job
and started working at Chung Hong.
When I work the afternoon shift, I live at my father's house.
From there a company bus takes me to the factory.
When I work the morning shift I live with my husband in a different town.
He gives me a lift as he works in the mornings, too.
He drops me off at the company bus stop.
So I keep going from one home to the other.
I have no time for myself. That's tiresome.
I always get up at 3:40 a.m.
Now it's winter time, so you go to work and it's dark,
you go home – and it's dark.
Days are short.
You take a quick bath, eat supper, and go to bed.
The next day you have to get up in the morning again.
One has no time even for the kids.
I work, my husband works,
so our child is with my mother-in-law all the time.
It goes to a kindergarten.
I have no time, even for my own kid.
It's like that every day.
My child is growing fast, and I don't even know,
because it's always nothing but work-home, work-home, work-home.
I'm a guest in my own house.
When I left the house once to go to work I had to trick my son.
I made him believe that I was going to the shop to buy him a chocolate egg.
He collects the figures inside.
I was leaving for the night shift and told him:
"Son, I will be back, I'm just going to the shop to get a chocolate egg for you."
"You know, mummy, I don't want that egg."
"Why?" - "Because when you go to get it you are gone for so long!"
When we got employed in this company it was a decent workplace.
The conditions were satisfying, and people wanted to work here.
They envied us in other factories,
seeing we had full social benefits and well-paid overtime.
After some time, the new managers introduced cuts.
- Dramatic cuts.
I began working at Chung Hong with a gross wage of 300 euros.
My first paycheck was 375 euros.
With bonuses and paid overtime I made up to 450 euros.
Now it's the other way around:
My gross wage is 450 euros, but I get 310 euros in cash.
I'm the only breadwinner in my family.
My wife is a teacher, and she can't find any job in the region.
Schools are being closed down, and there are very few kindergartens.
It is very difficult to find a job.
My net wage is around 375 euros, not enough to maintain a family.
I had to take out a mortgage to live with my family.
I bought a 26 sqm single-room flat where I live with my wife and my child.
The monthly installment is 125 euros, and another 125 euros go to pay my bills.
I'm left with another 125 euros.
All my money goes to pay for food and bills. There's no chance to save anything.
If I were to save up something, I think I'd have to stop eating.
It's impossible.
80 or 90 percent of people working in the SEZ can't afford to have a child.
A child involves many costs: bringing it up, education, diapers, food...
Our example: we rent a flat and we have just enough money to pay our bills for the two of us.
Sometimes we have to borrow. If we had a baby...
- ...we'd have to go abroad.
We wouldn't manage without the help of our parents.
I have to work overtime to make ends meet.
At the end, I spend 16 hours at work, then 3 hours at home,
and then I have to leave to take the bus to work again.
So 16 hours, plus 2 hours commute, you are gone for 18 hours.
It was not pleasant when my children started calling me "grandma".
I decided that the shitty money I earn is not worth it.
It is not worth it having such an impact on my children's psyche.
So I stopped doing overtime.
All this commuting, the exhaustion...
...if it meant getting good money we would feel motivated to work.
Unfortunately [it is not like that].
Now we are not allowed to do 16 hours overtime,
but we used to.
Women would have nose bleeding,
and they would just put tampons up their noses and keep working.
At one meeting, our manager said: "The employer will make up for all this."
But he didn't. He didn't even say "Happy Easter".
It was Easter, when the boss came to ask the workers
to work over the holidays because of some critical situation in the company.
He said he will make up for this, that it's going to be better, etc.
So we all kept working during the holidays, 16 hours.
We really hoped that the boss would make up for it.
After the holidays, the 200% bonus for weekend work was eliminated,
social benefits were taken away as well as the service premium.
So we got only the basic wage, nothing more.
That was the boss's compensation for our 16-hour-work during the holidays.
I remember that one year the boss came to meet the workers before the shift started,
and he asked us if we could start earlier.
He wanted us to work for 16 hours
because the company was late with orders and had to pay fines.
The workers agreed.
I think it was Thursday or Friday
when the boss came with one of the team-leaders to see me at the production line,
asking me to come in for 16 hours the following Saturday,
as they had another urgent order. I agreed.
After the afternoon shift I came in for the morning shift.
I was at home at 1 a.m. and got up at 3:30 a.m. in order to be in the factory in time.
I worked from 7 a.m. am till 11 p.m.
When I left, I tried to catch the factory bus.
I asked the driver: "Is it going to Nowa Ruda?"
He told me: "No, you don't know about it?"
"What should I know?"
"Transport is on hold until 1 a.m."
So I stayed in the zone until 1 a.m. I was at 3 a.m. at home and went to bed.
I got up, ate and I left to go to the factory for the next 16 hours.
Work in the SEZs is organized in such a manner
that workers have to adjust their entire lives to it.
Long drives to the factory and overtime work make it impossible to get a proper rest.
Constant exhaustion becomes part of everyday life.
This becomes all the more dangerous
as profit-seeking employers break health and safety regulations.
They also conduct experiments with new technologies and machines
without informing employees.
In past years, there have been serious accidents at LG plants due to employers' negligence.
Workers suffered serious injuries, and two died at work.
There was an accident.
It was rainy, and the bus fell over.
My colleague, Ania, fell on my hand, fortunately not on my head.
The injured were taken to the hospital,
the rest of us went back to the factory.
We waited for the bus in the rain, 1,5 or 2 hours.
We were all wet.
When we arrived in the factory we were given only a bucket of water
to clean our shoes from the mud.
No one came to us, neither management nor the team-leader.
No one asked how we felt.
It is not normal to treat people this way and bully them.
They put preassure on you.
Once an older woman from the DFT department needed to go to the toilet.
She had her period, she asked her leader to replace her.
She just wanted to leave the hall as you can't hold it when you have period.
But the leader refused and told her
that she had to bear it as he had no time.
The woman had blood all over her trousers.
She left the line and ran to the toilet.
At least we had long aprons.
In the bathroom, she took off her trousers,
washed them in the sink and dried them under the drier.
The next day she brought a nappy as she knew that no one would replace her.
Most of the workers in the Chung Hong factory are women
hired on temporary work contracts or through a temporary work agency.
In Poland, 27% of workers are employed on temporary contracts, the largest percentage in Europe.
At the beginning my daughter got up for school alone.
I was working the morning shift and once took my phone and walked out of the hall
to call her and to wake her up.
I remember how the leader scolded me: "where did you go? What were you doing?"
I told him, that I had to wake up my kid.
For him it was not appropriate to leave:
"How can you leave the hall?"
But, really, women had to leave their children alone,
and there was no other way to wake them up.
These conditions make it impossible for workers
to fulfill their basic needs in life.
Examples from many plants show that workers' attempts to organize
led to repression from the side of the managers.
Temporary employment and the reduction of the labor costs
raise the companies' profits.
Capital and the neoliberal state have recreated a market model
in which workers are exploited to their biological limits.
There is a high turnover in the factory.
I have worked here for 5 years, and after 2 years I saw only new faces.
It wasn't possible to become friends with anyone,
because other workers would not work there anymore after 2 weeks.
Sometimes, temporary workers make up half of the labor force.
If no one agrees to do voluntary overtime,
although the employer demands it, he blackmails temporary workers.
He tells them: "You have a [limited] junk contract for one week or one month,
and if you don't do overtime then we'll say 'thank you' and you'll be out of work!"
Total exploitation....
- ...Agencies exploit..
I have already worked there for some years and I noticed,
that when there is huge demand they employ a lot of people with short-term contracts.
Those People have no rights and no benefits.
They do great work, the company fulfills the orders,
and then production slows down and those people are sacked.
They don't have to pay them any compensation or anything.
Some people agree to this, being in a difficult situations.
I know a women who works on a [limited] "junk contract":
She was fired 5 times and she came back 5 times because she has no other way to make a living.
What's more, her husband is sick, so she has no other option.
3 years ago, during the crisis in the car industry, we worked for a subcontractor.
We were all sacked by Czech Skoda.
Then I got job in the SEZ,
at the Chung Hong factory which cooperates with LG.
When I started working there, 2 or 3 operators stood at one production line.
Now 1 person is supposed to be enough. How is that possible?
The management at Chung Hong changed and began
to put pressure on workers.
For example, one Chinese was standing beside me on the production line, every day for 8 hours.
When I started at 7 a.m. he was already waiting.
When I finished, he was looking at the clock.
Once it we had to work with timekeepers who checked
how long it takes to get a component, to glue it...
They calculated in seconds how much you had to do.
If someone has enough of all this, the exploitation, the threats, just goes on sick leave.
They go to the doctor and pretend to be sick.
Or they don't pretend but ask for a sick leave,
because they just can't bear the situation at work anymore.
Once the employer told us to come to work on a holiday.
Of course, a lot of people didn't like it, maybe even the majority.
A protest letter was written, demanding a free day.
It was a national holiday but the employer didn't care.
He just demanded that we come to work that day.
The list of people who didn't want to work that day was just ignored.
All regulations are made for the employer
while we, the workers, are condemned to misery.
Since we couldn't reach an agreement,
and because Poles couldn't communicate with the Chinese,
we organized a union.
We thought that we could maybe improve the situation by using the law,
because between them and us there was no exchange. They didn't want to listen to us.
There was only one way: You had to do something, it doesn't matter how.
Beyond the trade union it is very difficult for us to organize,
as we commute from different towns which are often many kilometers apart.
It is also difficult to organize at the workplace
because of the employer forbids us to be in contact with each other during work.
Our break lasts 20 minutes, and this is just enough
to eat something or to smoke a cigarette.
The worktime is set by the employer
so that there is no way to keep in touch.
It is not accepted to stay in contact.
One can be called into the office and be scolded for speaking with others and not fulfilling duties.
The trade union was founded to improve the situation.
The situation was dramatic.
The union asked for a wage increase as we hadn't gotten any for 3 years.
The union wanted to restore the social fund that had been abolished.
The company didn't want to make any concessions.
It was informed that if that did not change we would call for a strike.
There was a referendum but the employer tried to prevent it.
We had to hold the referendum outside the factory hall, in the company buses.
The referendum was successful, though, and it was valid.
Later they fired our unionist.
I think they did it because they were afraid.
We then went on strike.
- I had mixed feelings concerning the strike,
because sometimes I wanted it, and sometimes I didn't.
But there were a few situations at the workplace,
that made me join the strike.
The employer had entered the company bus
and kicked out a worker.
There was also a picket-line.
The employer locked us in the buses and demanded
that we only get off after entering the factory gate.
We had to go to the canteen and could only leave it later for smoking a cigarette.
How could he decide what we should do?
They didn't want us to leave the bus, and that made me join the strike.
I said: This is enough. This is not the way it should be!
/Down with exploitation/
/Chung Hong exploits/
Our employer sent his representatives to our bus.
They were sent to calm down people, so that they do not protest with us.
The strike began in summer 2012.
The participants demanded, among other things, the return to work of Krzysztof Gazda,
who had been illegally fired for union activity.
At the time, Krzysztof Gazda had been active in the collective dispute for months,
and he was fired in an attempt to weaken the trade union,
to interrupt the course of the dispute, and to prevent the pre-strike referendum.
We will not let them threaten us.
Together we are stronger than the employer. Remember that!
I walked from one person to the next, not knowing who would join.
Everyone told me they would also join if more people took part.
Everyone said the same but in the end I was alone.
The managers and the boss stood behind me and stared at me.
[The management is lying]
No wonder that only the courageous went with me while those afraid stayed.
It is clear, when the boss stands behind me
the workers listen to him not to another worker, otherwise they lose their job.
That was the beginning.
A small group started to gather, then got a little bigger.
Well, at the end we left the production hall.
They threatened us: If we didn't return we would be fired.
Later the called us into the office.
We refused, telling them if they wanted to talk to us
they would have to come to us and talk to everyone, not individuals.
/Do not tighten your belt but clench your fist/
We could stay on the factory premises but only in front of the building.
We couldn't go into the hall, couldn't use sanitary facilities, couldn't get drinking water.
After a week that changed.
It was outrageous.
We had to pee in front of the factory.
Bystanders, people we didn't know, brought us water to drink.
Is was so absurd,
given that our country is quite civilized and in the European Union.
The situation was so unpleasant for us, it's hard to talk about it.
They treated us worse than animals,
because people give animals water, right?
During the strike we had to have access to water.
It was 34 degrees Celsius hot, a nightmare, no water, no toilet.
The guards would continuously walk after you, as if you were up to something.
In this case, LG as the business partner should have taken a stand.
But LG didn't. What LG did made us very sad:
During the strike LG was insolent enough
to send their own workers to the [Chung Hong-]factory.
So LG operators worked on the production lines when we were missing.
That is all LG did.
We were on strike from June 28 to July 10 [2012].
We believed something would change,
that we would reach an agreement with the employer.
Unfortunately, we were all dismissed for breach of discipline, instead.
- Everyone wanted to go on strike, but then they got scared.
Probably that's why we don't have a job anymore.
Because if most of us had gone on strike
we probably would have gone back to work quickly.
I think it would have ended that way.
More than 20 people got fired, and all of them had permanent contracts.
Those were the people with the longest work experience,
those crucial for successful production,
experienced line operators, technicians.
Don't let them do what they did to us!
Don't give up! Don't let them do it!
Here is Poland, not China!
That's how the best line operator at Chung Hong ends!
I shared this opinion. And yesterday, I ended up on the street, dismissed for breach of discipline!
/Chung Hong exploits, LG profits/
I felt bad when I got the notice for striking,
as if someone had slapped me in the face.
I thought I was a good worker.
I had worked there for 3.5 years, and than such a dismissal on disciplinary grounds...
It's s if the employer simply threw out a useless piece of junk
that got in his way because it took part in the strike.
When you get fired on disciplinary grounds you don't get social welfare for 180 days.
I lost my job, I also lost my income.
At the moment it is very hard.
My husband also works at the plant but also earns very little.
It is difficult.
Moreover, we support our pregnant daughter.
We thought we could quickly find any job,
but, unfortunately, we haven't found any.
/The boss should work for 200 euro/
Right now I am dependent on my brother.
I have no income.
I can't count on the job center, I can't count on welfare.
in this situation we should be supported with some money,
even if it's just temporary or one-time help.
But nothing was done, and we were left on one's own.
- No one cares about us, we don't exist.
After losing my job in August, I went to the welfare office,
because my children had to go to school in September.
They had no textbooks, notebooks, no school-accessories, nothing.
So I went there, asking for help.
I got a slip that said
that my income exceeded 2 zlotys (0,50 euros) per person.
So I didn't get any support.
They told me that I had to get by somehow.
In the neoliberal state investments, the accumulation of capital
and the development of the GDP are more important than the well-being of ordinary people.
Investors are more important than all other citizens,
even if they don't pay taxes the state needs for infrastructure or the education of their employees.
Workers are seen as costs that need to be minimalized.
Public resources for care and public welfare
are reduced to a minimum.
At the same time, the managerial elites and the private sector
appropriate most of the produced wealth.
The Special Economic Zones are no exception.
Junk jobs, slave economy,
the redistribution of public resources to Polish and foreign investors,
political violence and economic constraint are more and more common.
That's how the whole SEZ working for LG looks like!
That's what these factories look like, and one must realize
that it is time to do something about it!
The local government in Kobierzyce says how great it is
what businesses operating in its region do.
It says how wonderful it is it receives taxes from them.
The local authorities should think a bit why this SEZ was created here.
It is because workers are far away from their homes,
so they can't unite and can be treated like cattle!
/Chung Hong exploits/
Even after all what happened, even if the strike didn't change anything,
and even if we are left with no livelihood, I still think I had to do it.
I couldn't accept that.
[Special Exploitation Zones]
Anyway, no human being can accept such a degradation...
Every human being can only bear so much, not more.
When I joined the strike we tried to change something.
I thought that if the majority of workers joined and it spread across the whole factory
then maybe something could happen.
If the workers in other factories in the SEZ realized
that in one factory people had decided to do something then maybe in other factories they would...
I thought that would have an impact, would lead to something new.
But until the victory it needs time.
/We are many, we will be more/
Unity is our strength,
and when one is already organized and the majority supports the strike
then let's all go, let's show that we are the power,
as we are many, and we can do more together.
When you are alone, you can't achieve much.