President of Sii Poland and owner of Polonia Warszawa [Grégoire Nitot] unlawfully dismisses our trade unionist, disregards Polish law, attacks French law

4 comments

  1. **TRANSLATION**:

    > A few days ago, our labor union was established at Sii Poland, with Krystian Kosowski as its chairman. Shortly after the union was established, our chairman wrote to his colleagues that a trade union had been formed, with encouragement for them to join it and fight together for better working conditions.

    > In response, the company’s president and owner of Polonia Warsaw, Grégoire Nitot, wrote a cursory letter to our leader declaring that he did not wish for a trade union (!) at his plant. At the same time, he explained that he left France, among other reasons, because there are strong and influential trade unions there, which makes it difficult for employers to make free decisions. In other words, Mr. Nitot not only expressed contempt for his country’s legislation, but treated Poland as a third-world country where labor rights can be violated with impunity. This is a shocking expression of praise for lawlessness that we find difficult to understand, let alone accept.

    > Shortly thereafter, our leader at Sia received a disciplinary dismissal. It was handed out outside of any procedure, without consultation with the union, without reference to any article from the Labor Code. The company authorities did not even hide the fact that the reason for the dismissal was to establish a union and encourage employees to join it. Firing the chairman of a union organization, on top of that without consulting the union under the law, is a brutal violation of the Law on Trade Unions. The company’s action is also a violation of the Polish Constitution. According to Article 12 of the Polish Constitution, “The Republic of Poland ensures the freedom to form and operate trade unions,” and Article 59 states that “freedom of association in trade unions shall be ensured.”

    > Our union is active in many workplaces both private and public. We are part of the social dialogue at the level of individual companies, industries and the country as a whole. So we regard the attack on our union as an attack not only on us, but also on the foundation of the Polish state and law.

    > Below is the letter, from the president of the company who sent it both to our trade unionist and to our headquarters, the disciplinary dismissal, in which there is no legal basis, and the letter from our leader to his colleagues inviting them to join the union, which was the basis for the dismissal.

  2. Only one thing to say: send him back to us, we will take care of him. I’m sure many trade union activists would be happy to talk to him. Verbally and physically.

    EDIT: I have done labour law – well only French law – and the fact that a company takes good care of its employees has nothing to do with the unions. Besides, the employer has no right to forbid his employees to join a union if they want to.

    There are other mistakes in my opinion but it is based on French labour law so maybe they are not mistakes from the point of view of Polish law.

    As much as I despise trade unions myself (not for the same reasons as him though) if it was up to me I would send you the CGT. Just to piss him off.

  4. To play devils advocate, if the person infact was going around trashing the reputation of the company basically points 2-4 in the email…. and only has been there 6 months it doesn’t really matter if they are the leader of the trade union they gave more then enough reason to be fired….As long as they receive there one month severance(due to hitting the 6 month mark) its within the law… or am i missing something here…. they can hide behind poor work/quality etc in order to fire them irregardless of trade union opinion

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