How did public sector workers end up exploited in the land of Solidarity, the trade union that challenged communism?
Michal Goscinski rode out the waves of the pandemic until it broke him. For months on end, the paramedic was signing up for every shift he could handle in the Warsaw ambulance service. His back ached constantly but staying home was not an option: the shifts were poorly paid and he needed to work a certain minimum to make ends meet. Had he taken time off sick, he would not have received any pay because, like most of Poland’s 18,000 paramedics, he was classed as self-employed. “I ruined my health,” he said. “I had to work more than I wanted.”
The ambulance workers have, in theory, chosen to be freelancers, as they also have the option of taking up permanent employment with the service. In practice though, self-employment tends to be the only offer on the table. For the managers, treating the paramedics like Uber drivers makes sense – it delivers savings and greater flexibility. For the ambulance workers, the arrangement has clear downsides. They have no job security and, as contractors helping the sick and injured, minimal insurance themselves against sickness and injury.
Last summer, Goscinski and his colleagues began fighting back against the Uberisation of the ambulance service. Some 60 paramedics across Warsaw went on strike, demanding a pay rise and the option of permanent employment – or as they put it, an end to the “dictatorship of self-employment”. At...
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