Social Scapegoat – Collective Dispute at MOPS?

Female social workers speak bitterly about their profession: people like us are constantly criticised. Those we help believe we are denying them support and acting against their interests. Taxpayers claim that we pass their money on to freeloaders.

In their daily work, social workers encounter alcoholism, drug addiction, violence, aggression, despair, and humiliation caused by poverty and social exclusion. Their primary role is to help people become independent—people who have often been taught passivity since childhood and have developed an entitled attitude (because that was once how the system worked, because they are supposedly entitled to it, because you have money, so give it to me without asking for anything in return). Social welfare workers are seen as those who either grant benefits or do not. Money, however, is only a means to an end. People employed in this profession undertake to help others get back on their feet and climb out of a difficult situation in life. They themselves are the tools of their work. They use their own authority, value system and personality.

For the benefit of clients therapists also work at the Municipal Social Welfare Centre, employed at support centres—the Day Care Centre, two Community Self-Help Homes and the Therapeutic Club.

Mobbing is a term derived from the German word mobben, meaning the persecution of a subordinate or co-worker in the workplace. Mobbing usually aims to or results in humiliation, ridicule, lowered self-esteem, elimination or isolation of an employee from co-workers. (source: Wikipedia)

A collective dispute may be a dispute over rights or interests; it may concern working conditions, wages or social benefits, as well as employees’ trade-union rights and freedoms. The parties to a collective dispute are the employer and employees represented by trade unions. Employers’ rights and interests may also be represented by an employers’ organisation. (source: Wikipedia)

In this profession, avoiding burnout or illness requires a healthy workplace and psychological support (for example, advice from a psychologist, whom Bolesławiec MOPS has not had for several years). Above all, however, good cooperation with the director is necessary.

The specific nature of this work is that the Social Welfare Act itself places the social worker in the role of the client’s representative. This can lead to conflicts with the employer. The employee must convince the director that the client is entitled to assistance, participates in solving their problems, and that without support their situation will not improve or change. Armed with knowledge of laws and regulations from many different fields, the social worker stands up to the employer and seeks assistance on behalf of their client. Sometimes the law requires them to stand up to the employer, disagree with a refusal and fight for their client.

It is possible that today’s conflict at MOPS began ten years ago. In 1999, a new female director took up her post and faced the task of managing a team that was largely autonomous, in accordance with the law. More than that, its task was to handle clients’ cases, take their side and, only in this situation, oppose the management.

Divide and rule – the anonymous MOPS box

When the institution’s management changed ten years ago, conflict became the way to manage the team. It began with the installation of a box into which any employee could place an anonymous letter containing information about another employee or workplace arrangements. The box always stood empty and disappeared after some time, but at first the employees’ morale was higher.

The next stage in setting employees against one another was the unequal and entirely unjustified allocation or withdrawal of financial bonuses. When asked why they were treated this way, the answers were terse: some work well, but others work better, or: where does it say that it has to be equal? There was no answer, however, as to what should be done to improve their work and its results.

A frequent method—as the women from MOPS say—was to compare one employee publicly with another, diminishing the value or competence of the person singled out. There were also cases of selecting a scapegoat who was subjected to more or less vexatious remarks and punishments. Most often, documents were returned for correction. In this way, an employee was buried under work, forced to revise letters endlessly because someone disliked the writing style, the document lacked the proper stamp, or the term “local branch” was deemed incorrect because it should properly have been “our branch”.

Such an employee, already exposed to stress in contact with clients and additionally criticised by the employer, often had to take tranquillisers to endure her work. There were also situations in which, driven to the breaking point, she burst into uncontrollable tears.

The management—as our interviewees relate—changed its interpretation of regulations so that employees could no longer make sense of them; this also undermined their authority before clients. Promotion for social workers was made difficult and, despite meeting the minimum qualification requirements, they waited as long as seven years for their professional status to be upgraded.

This situation continued for almost seven years, until eventually the team ceased to exist because it had become completely divided by conflict.

Without a union, she would have devoured us

The situation came to a head when one employee proposed organising meetings to discuss changing regulations and pointed out that this practice had been successfully used under the previous management.

The employee who allowed herself to compare the director with her predecessor was subjected to attacks of extraordinary intensity, our sources claim. The problem was not resolved and the conflicts intensified. When the employee was summoned to the director’s office again, she asked a colleague to accompany her as a witness.

The two women regarded what happened in the director’s office as mobbing, and said so explicitly. In front of witnesses, the director shouted at the employee, interrupted her, did not let her present her arguments, threatened her with disciplinary action and, as a consequence, drove her to extreme stress and a breakdown.

The need for joint action had existed earlier, because there had been similar situations. Constant criticism and the undermining of employees’ skills and competences were becoming the norm. At that time, the management announced changes to the regulations that would disadvantage employees. This united the staff, who concluded that without the support of others they had no chance of resolving the problem. As one employee said: “Without a union, she would have devoured us.”

To defend themselves, the employees established a “Solidarity” trade union (29 of the 65 employees belong to the union). It was formed in May this year. However, they failed to negotiate either work regulations or pay satisfactory to employees. And the director did not change her conduct one bit. An example was her refusal to allow information about an action organised by the unions—“Black T-Shirt Day”—to be posted at the centre. The action was intended, among other things, to draw Labour Minister Jolanta Fedak’s attention to how difficult and responsible social workers’ work is, as well as to the level of their pay.

The next step taken in this conflict was to enter into a collective dispute. The procedures have been under way since 6 October. For now, at the first stage, both sides are exchanging letters containing demands and responses to those demands. The letters are drafted by lawyers. None of them conveys the ten-year drama, humiliation and damage inflicted on those working at the Municipal Social Welfare Centre.