In Poland migrant slavery is growing

Newest report Polsat News shows a image that storms a convenient communicative about "a Polish marketplace in request of immigrant hands to work". There are stories of violence, exploitation and systemic pathologies behind statistic about the increasing number of foreigners, which are increasingly hard to ignore. Business Januszs usage visitors for slave work, where they are beaten and work for pennies.

Migrant slavery is increasing in Poland. Journalists have reached the recordings and accounts of migrants, from which a reality resembling a 19th century working relation emerges alternatively than the standards of a associate State of the European Union. 1 of the materials shows how the individual is beaten and humiliated by the overseer – according to witnesses only due to the fact that he worked “too slow”.

This is not a single case. Migrants talk about working respective hours a day, intellectual and physical pressures and "motivation" which in practice means intimidation. In many cases, they are employed on civilian law contracts, which allows them to circumvent working time regulations and restricts their real protection.

Even more shocking is the image of surviving conditions. Reporters went to places where foreigners live in basements, in narrow “capsules” with a width of small more than a metre. It is hard to talk about any dignity – it is alternatively a strategy of inexpensive retention of people than accommodation of workers.

The problem is structural. About 1.3 million foreigners are already working in Poland, and many of them go to the marketplace through intermediaries and employment agencies. It is in this area that there is simply a "gray zone" in which work is diluted: the employer does not know the worker, the agency is not liable for the conditions, and the state reacts only erstwhile the substance goes to the media.

The mechanics is simple: a abroad worker, frequently indebted or keeping a household in another country, is more inclined to accept conditions that Poles would not accept. This creates a temptation to abuse – the greater the dependence, the easier it is to exploit it. The consequence is simply a parallel labour market: an official, regulated – and a second, informal, based on pressure, fear and deficiency of real control. The Polsat News study suggests that in utmost cases we are dealing with a practice akin to modern forms of slavery.

The most worrying, however, is that specified situations are not entirely invisible to the institutions of the state. The inspection of work, services and administration have tools to respond – the problem is that the strategy works besides slow and sanctions are frequently disproportionate to the scale of abuse. Pathologies usually go out only erstwhile frustrated immigrants commit any kind of rape or murder, on average Poles and Poles who have nothing to do with slavery.

The study not only reveals pathologies, but besides raises the fundamental question: does Poland want to be a country that builds its competitiveness on a inexpensive and easy replaceable workforce? If so, further deepening of specified phenomena will result. If not, real changes are needed: more effective controls, greater liability of intermediaries and clear enforcement. Of course, the substance can be handled more simply – the ban on bringing immigrants to Poland, due to the fact that seemingly the country does not request them.

OUR COMMENTS: The same work can be done by Poles, and if Januszes of business, who present force immigrants into slave labor, will not be able to support themselves by paying their countrymen average salaries for decent work under decent conditions, let them wrap up and go and collect asparagus to Germany. Nobody's gonna cry after their bush companies.

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