When Bogusław Wojtas, deputy head of the Jelenia Góra Region Board of NSZZ Solidarność and chair of the negotiating team, was heading to talks at Toyota Boshoku in Wykroty, he was stopped by an employee of an external security company. The security guard said he had been instructed not to let in anyone without a pass.
The union official did not have a pass because he is not a Toyota employee. B. Wojtas said: “For the first time in my professional experience as a trade union activist, I have encountered an employer making it difficult for a member of a negotiating team to enter talks during an ongoing collective dispute. I have already conducted negotiations for employers such as Tesco, Castorama and Real. No one has ever gone so far.”
Bogusław Wojtas asked the other members of the team to demand a statement confirming that the employer did not want to let him into the talks. When that failed, he advised the union members to attend the meeting and demand minutes containing one sentence—that the employer had refused entry to a representative of the negotiating team. “Those minutes were drawn up. My law firm has already prepared a notification to the prosecutor’s office concerning the suspected commission of an offence,” said the deputy head of “S”. “Toyota’s logo is known all over the world. The company presents itself as a good employer that observes labor standards and supports dialogue. This situation clearly contradicts that.”
Let us recall. On December 6 last year, the company organization of NSZZ Solidarność at Toyota Boshoku in Wykroty submitted three demands to the employer, setting December 12 as the deadline for their implementation. The union members’ demands—the most important being a gross pay increase of PLN 700 for every plant employee, of whom there are approximately 900—were not met. A collective dispute began.