Ewelina Schweizer is one and a half metres tall. She weighs just over 50 kg. A tiny thing, as Mr Jakub, who tried to help her on that fateful day, puts it.
The whole story unfolded on 31 October, the day before All Saints’ Day. Carrefour was extremely busy. “I was working on the shop floor with a colleague from my department [napojów – przyp. red.]; we were doing what we were supposed to do. He moved the heavy loads, and I helped him put out the goods. That was my everyday work. For seven years now,” Ms Ewelina says.
She was due to finish work at 2 p.m. “We didn’t manage to finish. Two pallets were left for our colleague, who was coming in for the second shift,” the woman says. At around 1:30 p.m., a manager appeared in the drinks department and conveyed the store director’s order to Ms Ewelina. The employee was told to put out both pallets and to do it alone. “She said that if I did not carry out the order, the director would fire me,” Ms Ewelina recounts. “I was frightened.
According to her, each pallet weighed at least 600 kg. She unloaded them. Mr Jakub (name changed) helped her for a moment. Only for a moment, because both suspected that the director might be watching them via the surveillance cameras. “I did it very quickly. I tried to follow health and safety regulations, but I felt terrible pressure. I was not myself. I had only one goal: to carry out the order,” Ms Ewelina stresses.
“At one point I felt pain in my back. I did not know what was happening. I swelled up from the exertion. At 2:14 p.m., when the horror was over, I went into the changing room. I did not want to encounter the director on the way. I was afraid he would hand me my notice,” she adds.
Her husband then came to pick her up. “I got into the car. But I could barely get out of it,” she says. “I lost consciousness at home. I could not move.
Ms Ewelina was taken to hospital. She was given a series of injections. A surgeon found that she had suffered an overload injury to her spine. “I had never had problems with my spine before,” she stresses. “Until then, I had really liked this job. But I would not wish what happened to me on anyone. How can you treat a long-serving employee like that?”
“We had been working hard since early morning,” Mr Jakub says. “For me, as a man, putting out such a large pallet is a tremendous effort, let alone for such a tiny thing. And all within half an hour,” he adds, noting that none of this would have happened if the pallets had been unloaded after 2 p.m.
Ewelina Schweizer admits that the atmosphere at work began to deteriorate when a new director arrived (about two months ago). According to other store employees (we spoke to two of them), their boss can be overbearing, puts pressure on subordinates, and does not even reply to “good morning.” “He is absolutely not suited to this position,” says Ms Martyna (name changed).
Official statement from Carrefour
We were unable to contact the store director. Last week, he was attending training in Wrocław. The department manager immediately referred us to the company’s spokesperson in Warsaw. In an email to our editorial office, Maria Cieślikowska, Carrefour Polska’s director of external communications and PR, wrote:
“From the accounts provided by the supervisors, we know that the order given to Ms Ewelina did not require her to violate any regulations. The employee was instructed to replenish goods on the shelves. Since this is a small store, the order concerned replenishing a maximum of four six-packs of 1.5-litre bottles of water and a maximum of 15 five-litre water containers. Since the shelves cannot hold more goods, the task was entirely feasible, and the employee had half an hour to complete it. There was also no need to move pallets containing more goods than those that were to be put out.
The injured woman is an experienced employee. She completed periodic health and safety training and knows the regulations concerning her duties, while unfortunately the employer is not aware of each employee’s individual predispositions and cannot predict every person’s health response. Therefore, bearing in mind that various external circumstances may arise while work is being performed—for example, feeling worse or carrying out an order more slowly—all employees know that, if it is necessary to stay longer, the time by which their working day was extended can be accounted for on another day by arriving later or recording overtime.
Based on the facts gathered so far, we would like to state that no health and safety rules or accepted standards were exceeded while the employee was carrying out the task assigned to her. The employee also did not complain of any ailments or signal any problem while performing her duties.
At the same time, we also feel obliged to inform you that this employee was known to often refuse to perform her duties, believing that, in her position as leader of the drinks department, she should not be responsible for putting goods on shelves. The practice at the store, however, was that when there was a lot of work, employees senior to her took on such tasks. The order to replenish the shelves was first given to Ms Ewelina by the store director. After she refused to carry it out and said that “the next shift can do it,” the director asked the store manager to deal with the matter, and she once again passed the order on to the employee.
At the same time, we would like to inform you that we are still examining this matter in detail. We are awaiting a medical statement that will answer the question of whether the injury suffered by our employee was a sudden injury caused by an external factor or not. Such a statement will allow us to take further action and proceed in accordance with applicable law.[...]
At the end of the statement, Director Cieślikowska expressed regret over “Ms Ewelina Schweizer’s indisposition.”
“If I was a bad employee, then why did I receive a 10-percent bonus in October?” Ms Ewelina asks rhetorically.
What next?
The woman announces that if the incident of 31 October is not recognised as a workplace accident, she will file a claim with the labour court and bring a civil action against the Carrefour group.
We will return to the case.
(information ii)