We present the document below:
We live in times and within a cultural sphere where dialogue and agreement are fundamental, highly important values that shape interpersonal relations, while also serving as tools for resolving conflicts and reaching mutually beneficial agreements.
It might seem that in a company bearing the Toyota logo, these would be self-evident and indisputable truths.Unfortunately, this is certainly not self-evident at Toyota Boshoku Poland in Wykroty, where the company’s management is taking actions whose sole purpose is to pretend to engage in dialogue, hinder trade union activities and disregard the law in force in Poland concerning the Trade Unions Act and the Act on the Resolution of Collective Disputes.
Evidence of this is the company authorities’ attempt to interfere in the composition of the union’s negotiating team by preventing the team’s chair, a representative of the Jelenia Góra Region Board of NSZZ Solidarność, Bogusław Wojtas from taking part in the talks.
The argument is that Bogusław Wojtas is not an employee of Toyota Boshoku Poland. The company’s management refuses to accept that NSZZ Solidarność is a nationwide trade union and that the workplace organization has the right to receive direct support during negotiations from union representatives and specialists from structures above the workplace level.
In our opinion, the company management’s actions are a pretext allowing company representatives to continue disregarding the problem of low wages and poor working conditions.We demand that the management of Toyota Boshoku Poland respect the independence of NSZZ Solidarność and its right to appoint trade union representatives at the discretion of the union’s authorities.
We demand that the management of Toyota Boshoku Poland in Wykroty comply with the provisions of Polish labor law.
We demand the implementation of the demands presented by the Workplace Commission of NSZZ Solidarność concerning wage increases and improved working conditions.We declare our full support for the trade union members [...] including participation in protest actions and support for any potential strike actions.
What do you think? Will there be a strike?
Let us recall. On January 12, we reported that when Bogusław Wojtas, deputy head of the Jelenia Góra Region Board of NSZZ Solidarność and chair of the negotiating team, was heading to negotiations 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 trade union member 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 encountered an employer making it difficult for a member of a negotiating team to enter negotiations during an ongoing collective dispute, although I have already conducted negotiations for employers such as Tesco, Castorama and Real. No one has ever gone this far before.”
Bogusław Wojtas asked the other team members to demand a statement that the employer did not want to let him into the negotiations. When this proved unsuccessful, he advised the trade union members to attend the meeting and demand a record containing a single sentence—that the employer had refused entry to a representative of the negotiating team. “This record was drawn up. My law firm has already prepared a notification to the prosecutor’s office regarding suspected criminal wrongdoing,” the deputy head of “S” told us at the time. “Toyota’s logo is known throughout the world; the company makes a point of presenting itself as a good employer that respects labor standards and supports dialogue. This situation clearly contradicts that.”
How did this happen? On December 6 last year, the workplace organization of NSZZ Solidarność at Toyota Boshoku in Wykroty put forward three demands to the employer, setting December 12 as the deadline for their implementation. The trade union members’ demands—the most important being a gross PLN 700 pay increase for every employee of the plant, which employs around 900 people—were not met. A collective dispute began.