The collective dispute between trade unionists and Bauer Publishing House and its subsidiary AKPA Press Polska has been going on for several months. The trade unionists are demanding from the boards of directors of both companies, among other things: increasing the basic salary of all employees by PLN 1,000. zloty.
After the parties to the dispute had been unable to reach an agreement for several months, the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy appointed a mediator – Paweł Śmigielski, head of the legal and intervention department of the OPZZ. The first mediations took place at the end of July. The employers were represented there by Adam Parysz, who was entrusted by the boards of directors of AKPA and Bauer Publishing House as chief negotiator.
The second took place on Monday, September 16. Unionists treated them as “last chance negotiations.” However, the parties failed to reach an agreement during them.
Employers rejected union demands
– The employers refused to implement our demands. To the mediator’s surprise, they also cancelled the preliminary preparations for the previous meeting. They stated that they would be the subject of the work of project groups that they created under the name People Plus. And that, in our view, they are an attempt to weaken the importance of the trade union, collective dispute and to distract from the economic problems of workers, which are urgent – Anita Zuchora reports in an interview with Wirtualnemedia.pl.
Maciej Brzozowski, Bauer’s PR Director, informed us that regardless of mediation, a few weeks ago the Publisher announced the launch of the PeoplePlus Program, in which I work together with 51 people from the Publisher and AKPA Press Polska, who joined this initiative, in four projects that address real employee problems.
– The work on the program starts this week, which will allow us to develop solutions that are satisfactory for all parties. The solutions will cover not only issues related to remuneration, but also the broadly understood needs of employees and their relations with the employer – adds Maciej Brzozowski.
There may be a warning attack on Bauer
– We consider projects that democratize company management and give employees at least a minimal influence on the company’s situation to be an interesting solution. But the projects proposed by Bauer Publishing have little in common with democratization – the entire project has a multi-stage structure that duplicates the structure of the company itself, and the final decisions, regardless of what employees try to impose, will be made by management. In addition, there are many people in management positions within the project groups themselves, which, of course, makes everything much more convenient for the employer – comments Anita Zuchora.
The PeoplePlus programme is managed by a Steering Committee consisting of employee and employer representatives. These are employee representatives from both companies: Diana Ożarowska-Sady and Grzegorz Garbacik, and from the employers’ side: Agnieszka Stolarska, Ewa Bartulis (from the legal department), Małgorzata Walkowska-Geyderowicz (board of directors of AKPA Press Polska), Ewa Wudarczyk (HR department of the Publishing House), Rafał Kordus (Board of Directors of the Publishing House) and Adam Parysz (Board of Directors of AKPA). Maciej Brzozowski said that despite the previous refusal, trade union representatives were invited to the Steering Committee again.
– Today’s mediation meeting was the last amicable stage of our collective dispute. On October 1st we signed the report of discrepancies. Until then, we can organize a warning strike. And after signing the protocol, we will start organizing a strike referendum, announces Anita Zuchora.
