In Poland, migrant workers from Latin America report abuse, exploitation
Rocio Flores, a 44-year-old mother of three, stood trembling in the bathroom of a dilapidated country house in Blaszki, a village in central Poland.
…a man from the agency she had been working for had waved a gun at her and five of her Colombian coworkers. It was August 2023...
The dispute began when the agency representative announced that the workers’ shifts at the Plukon chicken processing plant would be extended to 12 hours due to staff shortages. The group had refused and demanded the wages they were owed. A heated argument followed. Then the man reached for his gun...
...The man was then employed by a contractor company that worked with Jober24, a temporary recruitment agency supplying staff to Plukon...
…officers located the man, but identified him as a Georgian national and claimed the gun was a toy. They allegedly encouraged the migrants to reconcile with him rather than press charges.
…did not pursue the case because none of the group had filed a formal complaint. In a statement to Al Jazeera, the Plukon plant said that the man with the gun was not directly employed by their company or by Jober24...
Eventually, Flores and the others, who work for an outsourcing company, received their payment: 17 zloty ($5) an hour, below the legal minimum wage of 21 zloty ($6) at the time. In their statement, Plukon said that they always paid their workers wages in line with the Polish law...