International Organization for Migration (IOM)

Annex
Annex 3.I: Interviews on access to labour market information
A1- An FGI – an employee of a poviat labour office.
There are companies operating in Poland legally, well I mean theoretically legally
(…) they are registered and hold certificates (…) and they bring employees - of course
also on the basis of declarations (…) in bulk numbers (…) they attracted employees
to come, issued declarations and then sent them away or lent them to someone else,
or some other weird operations were applied (…) for example a mini-bus arrives,
at five o’clock in the morning and a Ukrainian guy knocks on the door; the driver
comes to a farmer – how many people do you need?. Seven – and seven people get
off the mini-bus. He goes to another one and asks; three – well, then three get off.
A2 - An employer (Lubelskie voivodship).
In your opinion do seasonal workers coming for such a short stay undertake any
undocumented employment? – Usually.
A3 - An employer (Mazowieckie voivodship).
As I have already said, if everything was made easier nobody would want to work
illegally. Neither I nor he would like that. So what I am saying is that whatever is
illegal is due to complicated regulations. There’s a lot of paperwork and so on, and
not everyone will cope with that and if it were easier then nobody would want to
do that illegally. If I am to pay, well you know, a reasonable fee and it is easy as I
don’t have to fill in loads of papers and send them, because as regards a contract for
work, if I hired at the same time more than 5 people then I wouldn’t have to submit
those papers; I only need to create an e-mail address, and send e-mails, because
otherwise they do not accept it.
A4 - An employer (the Mazovian voivodship).
If I need someone to work I call Ukraine because I know who to phone there and
I ask (…) which one wants to come and I have an immediate answer that I can
count on him.
A5 - A teacher from Ukraine.
So a few years ago they worked mainly through “Poliglot” company, where this
company was an intermediary; they worked for this company, the company
distributed them around various schools and every year schools could be changed,
and the company arranged for them accommodation, residence cards, work permits
and taking this all off their hands [...] But compared with a salary of a teacher
employed directly was it much less beneficial? It was not much less advantageous
because it was compensated by accommodation, card charges and additionally the
company brought them from and took them back to Ukraine by mini-buses. [...] The
only disadvantage was that they had contracts for the school year only so didn’t get
paid for summer holidays, no money for two months. This was a disadvantage, but
not a big one if you take into account long queues in the offices they would have to
stand in, while they could go home and the boss arranged everything for them and
delivered to their homes the card and the permit.
country studIes – POLAND
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