The situation at the “Bolesławiec” Ceramic Works (ZCB) is difficult. The conflict intensified last year, when trade unionists organized a protest outside the company. The dispute concerns differences in the treatment of employees hired under time-based (hourly) and piece-rate systems.

Trade unionists argue that piece-rate workers are treated worse, and that more than half of them do not even earn the minimum wage, receiving only payments to bring them up to that level. The company still has no clear pay regulations. We have written about this in a series of articles.

We asked Grzegorz Przybylski, head of the county Civic Coalition structures, about the matter, but he did not address the issue.

Avoidance and defending one’s own

Grzegorz Przybylski’s decision not to engage in a public discussion about the conflict at ZCB may appear to be a measured and neutral position. On closer inspection, however, it looks more like a conscious avoidance of responsibility and a defense of his own people.

Przybylski argues that he knows little about the conflict itself and lacks the competence to comment on the management board’s work. Claims of ignorance or lack of competence are convenient, but insincere. Everyone has known about the conflict at ZCB for a year, since the protest organized by trade unionists in 2025.

What is happening at ZCB is not a media invention. These are real events involving people, such as the president dismissing an employee with 30 years of service and suing him for PLN 25,000 over a critical post. The problems with managing a company owned by the State Treasury are also real, as are decisions made by people connected with Przybylski’s political circle.

Addressing the issue, however, would require him to take a position regarding his own people. Since ZCB president Arkadiusz Grzesikowski is also Przybylski’s first deputy, while Wojciech Huczyński, a board member, was elected secretary, the lack of comment can be interpreted as protecting party relationships and an unwillingness to fall out with his own political base.

Do you remember Przybylski’s election promises?

“Thirteen for Bolesławiec” consists of more than a dozen promises Grzegorz Przybylski made to residents during the local elections, when he ran for mayor.

Przybylski promised that he would ensure that women’s voices were not merely heard, but listened to. As he put it nicely during the campaign:

(...) among other things, we will implement a people-centered approach at the local-government level, because it is important to us that every resident be listened to.

Not my responsibility

We asked Przybylski to listen to the voices of ZCB employees. We asked about people who speak of legal and psychological pressure allegedly exerted on some employees by ZCB’s management and add that any criticism of the management may result in looking for a pretext to dismiss an employee.

Employees criticizing the management spoke about what they have to face at work: disciplinary dismissals, being banned from entering the plant, and attempts to find pretexts for dismissal based on their words.

Przybylski turns a deaf ear to these residents’ voices and replies, probably with the help of artificial intelligence, that:

issues of this kind fall exclusively within the competence of supervisory and ownership bodies and institutions responsible for corporate oversight, which have both the appropriate powers and full access to the source materials necessary for a reliable assessment of the situation.

Could it be that Grzegorz Przybylski has already closed the chapter in which he listened to the voices of women and residents and tried to pave their lives in the city of ceramics with roses?!

Correspondence with Grzegorz Przybylski

In February 2026, we asked Grzegorz Przybylski:

Will you discuss the situation at ZCB among Civic Coalition members? Arkadiusz Grzesikowski, who receives a president’s salary, sued an employee earning a fraction of his salary for PLN 25,000 over a critical post. It looks really bad. And not only from a public-relations perspective. The employee accused of defamation devoted 30 years of his life to this plant and was thrown out—there is no other way to describe it.

Grzegorz Przybylski answered the question:

The internal arrangements of Platforma, now Civic Coalition, are that the county leader—Karol Stasik—speaks first. I am an ordinary member; I am not on the county or city board. I do not know the issue concerning the plant, because we do not discuss professional matters. I would like to help, but currently I do not have knowledge of these topics.

When Grzegorz Przybylski was elected head of Civic Coalition in Bolesławiec County in March 2026, as he had suggested, we asked him about the matter again:

In connection with work on the article, I would like to request an official comment on the conflict between ZCB’s management—Civic Coalition nominees—and the Workers’ Trade Union, as well as on criticism of the management and NSZZ Solidarność’s support for the trade unionists, particularly a comment on the lawsuit against an employee dismissed after 30 years for a Facebook post criticizing the president and current Civic Coalition deputy chair in Bolesławiec, Arkadiusz Grzesikowski.

Below is the full response from the head of the county Civic Coalition structures:

Dear Editor,

For some time, as a representative of the Istotne.pl editorial team, you have been contacting me with questions concerning the president of the management board of one of the companies operating in Bolesławiec.

I appreciate your interest in public affairs and your concern for transparency in public life; however, allow me to organize this matter and clarify the scope of competence within which we can provide answers.

I would respectfully point out that the Chair of the Management Board of the County Civic Coalition is not the appropriate person to formulate detailed assessments or comments concerning the operational activities of commercial-law companies or individual decisions and actions taken by the people managing those entities. Issues of this kind fall exclusively within the competence of supervisory and ownership bodies and institutions responsible for corporate oversight, which have both the appropriate powers and full access to the source materials necessary for a reliable assessment of the situation.

It is also worth noting that membership in a particular political circle is neither a basis for preferential treatment nor for making hasty judgments. The activities of people holding public or management positions should be assessed solely on the basis of their actions, competence, and compliance with applicable law and corporate-governance principles.

In view of the above, given the lack of direct competence, it is not appropriate for the Chair of the Management Board of the County Civic Coalition to take a position on the questions you have asked.

With the above in mind, thank you for your understanding.

Yours sincerely, Grzegorz Przybylski