With the coronavirus epidemic raging in Poland, and the health service in a state of collapse, Poland’s Law and Justice government is planning to go ahead with the presidential election on 10 May at any cost. Faced with the refusal of local governments to cooperate with the organisation of the election, Law and Justice is now planning to use the Territorial Army and postal workers to push ahead with the election.
In response to the situation, Polish postal workers have set up a Rank-and-File Strike Committee to build support for a postal workers strike.They are demanding:
- 1000 zł (220 euro) pay rise for all operating staff.
- Cancellation of the presidential elections
- Closure of all post offices and distribution and dispatch centres for the duration of the epidemic with 100% pay.
We spoke to the initiator of the Rank and File Strike Committee — a postal worker who is a member of Alternatywa Socjalistyczna.
What is the situation of postal workers at the moment? What are the problems and dangers you face?
The Management Board of Polish Post announces with much fuss in the media that it cares about the safety of employees, the opening and closing time of post offices has been rightly shortened and access to them has been limited by limiting the number of people who can be in the post office at the same time, but along with this solution thousands of post offices have sent employees on forced vacation leave, thus violating employee rights. The same is true of protective measures such as masks, disinfectant liquids, hand gels, and protective gloves — their number is still insufficient, as hundreds of post offices report that they are not equipped with them at all or have so few that they are sufficient for several days at the most.
So far, more than three postal workers have been infected with the coronavirus and more than a hundred workers are under quarantine. Postal workers are terrified, afraid for their own health, as well as that of their families and customers, and their fear has increased even more after the government announced its intention to hold the presidential election by postal vote.
How feasible is it to carry out the presidential elections by postal vote as Law and Justice insist on doing?
In the original form of the Electoral Code, elections by postal vote were not feasible at all, as it required the involvement of forces which Polish Post simply does not have, therefore the Law and Justice party changed the Electoral Code in such a way as to facilitate this task. Along the way, Law and Justice forced the previous president of Polish Post to resign, since he questioned the sense of organising elections by postal vote. However, despite the change of the rules, the election by postal vote will still be a difficult task to perform and everything will take place at the limit of the company’s human and organizational capacity. This work will take place until late at night. Given that thousands of post offices are falsifying their working time records by not recording overtime, this work will be done for free by many postal workers. Another threat is the so-called “anti-crisis act” according to which Polish Post will be able to extend the working day to 12 hours for each employee and reduce the daily rest time from 11 to 8 hours. Besides, the new way of postal voting creates conditions for electoral fraud as the letter with the election package will be thrown into the recipient’s letterbox. Many households do not have letterboxes at all, and letterboxes in many blocks of flats are in a poor condition or are so damaged that everyone has access to them.
What are the trade unions doing in this situation? Are they defending the health and safety of postal workers?
All the trade unions are a few steps behind the mood of postal workers. When workers demanded the closure of all post offices, the union bureaucrats only demanded that certain services be restricted, so without waiting for the trade union bureaucracy to move, a petition was sent to the relevant ministry on my initiative, in which postal workers, due to the spreading coronavirus epidemic, demanded the closure of all post offices and distribution centres for a period of two weeks, with the right to retain 100% of their salaries. More than 2,000 employees signed the petition within three days. The reply was negative, because according to the ministry, Polish Post is too important for the operational continuity of the state and cannot be closed, and it was added that the management of Polish Post is exemplary in its care of the safety of employees. But despite the fact that Polish Post was considered necessary for the functioning of the state, the government does not want to resign from the commercialisation of the company.
After the trade unions finally recovered from the shock of the coronavirus in Poland, they began to demand increased safety for postal workers, but they have not taken any decisive action to this end, nothing has been done except to send letters to the management board. On the other hand, demands for an additional bonus for employees for working in the conditions of the epidemic, which were put forward by the employees already at the beginning of the epidemic, appeared only after about two weeks. In the case of the presidential elections by postal vote, only the pro-government “Solidarity” union is in favour of holding them. According to the bureaucracy of this union, despite initial problems with providing appropriate health and safety equipment, the management of Polish Post has managed to get on top of the problem completely, and since it is already safe, the postal vote elections can be held. The second trade union represented in OPZZ is moderately critical of postal elections and calls for dialogue and postponement of the elections. My trade union has not yet officially expressed its opinion on this matter, however, the dominant mood is opposed to postal elections.
What is the mood among postal workers? How much support is there for a strike?
The workers are angry, they don’t want to risk their health or life, so the most popular demand among the staff is to close all post offices, but no trade union will dare to come out with such a demand. The turmoil of the postal elections has further exacerbated the mood to such an extent that people are daring more and more to talk about a strike. On my initiative, the Rank and File Strike Committee has been established, which so far has brought together about 200 employees from 25 post offices and other company units. The dominant direction in the group is the desire to establish a new trade union. The second direction, less popular but possible, is to join the most sensible trade union at present under the terms and conditions of the Rank and File Strike Committee, namely — WZZPP — Free Trade Union of Postal Workers.
How do you see the way forward?
As far as the Rank and File Strike Committee is concerned, my aim is to work towards strengthening WZZPP and to use the pressure of the Rank and File Strike Committee to shift WZZPP to an even more left-wing and fighting position. Currently, the Rank and File Strike Committee and WZZPP are talking about unification. Strengthening and moving WZZPP to the left will benefit all postal workers and will be a step towards organising a strike. Such a direction is also justified by the fact that WZZPP is currently the only union that could oppose the bureaucratic and conciliatory representative unions. However, if the employees associated in the Rank and File Strike Committee insist on forming a new trade union, it will be my task and duty to help them achieve this goal.
The government is insisting on postal vote elections, so the new president of Polish Post will have to break the resistance of the trade unions and the workers themselves. The coronavirus epidemic is growing in strength and is getting more and more dangerous, the mood among the postal workers is becoming radicalised, and therefore the resistance of the workers will also increase. The next 2–3 weeks will be decisive.
