Polish Workers Research Articles

Polish Forced Labourers in the Klaipėda Region during World War II

This paper examines the plight of Polish forced labourers in the Klaipėda region during World War II, shedding light on a lesser-known aspect of Nazi occupation policies. Drawing on a database maintained by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, the author collected data on nearly 2,000 Polish individuals subjected to forced labour in Klaipėda. Through archival research and analysis of personal testimonies, the study explores the demographics, origins, working conditions, and treatment of these labourers. The occupation of Klaipada by Nazi Germany resulted in the displacement of local populations and the influx of foreign workers to meet wartime labour demands. Polish labourers, predominantly young and from economically disadvantaged regions like Ciechanów, were among those forcibly mobilized. They were subjected to harsh treatment, discriminatory laws, and often found themselves in precarious working and living conditions. The paper highlights the experiences of Polish labourers in various industries, including construction and agriculture, and examines the motivations behind their escapes from forced labour. It also addresses the sensitive issue of sexual violence against female Polish workers, which remains largely overlooked in historiography. The liberation of Klaipėda by Soviet forces in 1945 brought an end to forced labour in the region, but many labourers faced further hardships, including mistreatment by Soviet authorities. The paper concludes with reflections on the post-war reparations process and calls for further research and cross-border cooperation to fully understand the history of forced labour in the Klaipėda region and its lasting impact on affected communities.

Gender and organizational commitment: evidence from a nationwide survey in Poland

Purpose The study examines whether affective organizational commitment and its drivers differ between Polish female and male employees.Design/methodology/approach Our proprietary data are from ongoing surveys conducted by a major Polish HR consulting firm. The nationwide survey of nearly 3,000 Polish workers in 2020 constitutes the data set in this analysis. Regression analysis is applied to analyze the relationship between organizational commitment, gender and other variables.Findings The study provides support for the job model, that is, women and men have similar levels of commitment once all other factors are controlled. Although the results show that, ceteris paribus, the organizational commitment of women is statistically significantly higher than that of men, the effect size is trivial in practical terms. The study also discloses the fact that the determinants of organizational commitment of men and women are similar, thus refuting a commonly held notion about gendered job attribute preferences. Support for gender as a moderator between organizational commitment and its antecedents is not found. COVID-19-related work adjustments do not seem to have affected the commitment of Polish male and female workers to their employers.Originality/value The study adds to the scarce empirical literature on organizational commitment in Poland. To date, only a small number of such studies exist for Poland, and all of them use small homogeneous samples and limited questionnaires. The results are of value to researchers as well as HR managers seeking to improve long-term commitment to organizations.

Spirituality, Organizational Gratefulness, and Well-Being Among Polish Workers.

The relationship between spirituality at work and occupational and subjective well-being is not a well-recognized area of research. Many studies have indicated the beneficial effects of spiritual activities on employees' flourishing, but the mechanisms of this influence are still not sufficiently explained. This study aimed to verify the proposed mechanisms that underlie employees' spirituality, stress at work, and life satisfaction, and the role of gratitude toward the organization in these relationships. It was assumed that employees' spirituality is indirectly related to stress at work via gratitude toward the organization. In turn, gratitude toward the organization is directly and indirectly related to life satisfaction through stress at work. The study encompassed 754 individuals working in different companies in Poland. In a sample of women, both spirituality dimensions were indirectly related to stress at work and life satisfaction. Among men, only the secular dimension of spirituality, such as attitude toward coworkers, was indirectly related to stress at work and life satisfaction. Gratitude toward the organization was negatively directly related to stress at work and, through this variable, indirectly positively related to life satisfaction. The benefits of employees' spirituality for their well-being were confirmed, emphasizing a grateful attitude toward the organization as a significant factor in this relationship.

Variability Among Polish Workers in Flexible Employment: A Sociodemographic Analysis

This paper presents sociodemographic data derived from an empirical study conducted on a sample of n=2118 workers engaged in flexible forms of employment, within a broader research endeavor titled “Occupational challenges among individuals working under flexible employment arrangements – a psychological perspective”. The decision to focus on this segment of the research stemmed from a trend identified in international literature, examining the profile of the average flexible worker in highly developed nations. Analysis of the sample of flexible workers reveals a cohort primarily comprised of young individuals, with comparable representation of both genders, residing in urban areas, and possessing relatively short tenures of employment. They tend to be well-educated, married with children, having a limited number of past employers, and predominantly employed within the private sector. The characteristics of the Polish study sample align with descriptions of the typical flexible worker in Europe.

Foreign ownership and gender differences in pay: causal evidence from a sample of Polish workers

Abstract The study attempts to estimate the causal relationship between foreign company ownership and wages that is driven by ownership per se, and not by observable or unobservable worker and firm characteristics. We employ proprietary data from surveys conducted by Sedlak & Sedlak, a major Polish HR consulting firm, with our pooled cross-section data set comprising over 300,000 men and 250,000 women working in the Polish labor market between 2013 and 2017. The foreign-firm wage premium is estimated by several techniques, ranging from ordinary least squares and two-stage least squares to a recently developed frequentist RX-2SLS econometric procedure that relaxes IV assumptions via the exclusion restriction. Our major findings are: (1) regardless of gender, Polish workers employed by majority foreign capital firms earn a significant wage premium; and (2) the foreign-firm wage premium is substantially larger for women, suggesting that the wage policies used by foreign-owned firms in Poland have an equalizing effect on the gender wage gap.

Work engagement, impulsivity and, self-efficacy among Polish workers. Moderating role of impulsivity.

The study proposes adding a new component to the Job Demands-Resources Theory, termed 'personal demands'. Impulsivity serves as an illustrative example of personal demands. A cross-sectional questionnaire was conducted and a total of 394 (Female = 59.6%) workers were surveyed. Standardized survey questionnaires were used in the study, i.e. The Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9), Life Roles Self-Efficacy Scale (LRSES) and UPPS-P Impulsive Behaviour Scale. The obtained results indicate that Work Engagement correlates negatively with Impulsivity scales (lack of premeditation (r = -.22; p < .001), lack of persistence (r = -.27; p < .001), positive urgency (r = -.12; p, < .01) and negative urgency (r = -.12; p < .01)). In addition, Positive Urgency, moderates the relation between Self-efficacy and Work Engagement, in line with the theory (B = .133; SE = .067; t = 1.98; p < .05; LLCI = .0007; ULCI = 0.2643). This confirmed the fact, that impulsivity should be included in the JDR theory as a 'personal demand'.

OLDER WORKERS’ AND EMPLOYERS’ PERSPECTIVE ON EXTENDING WORKING LIFE: THE CASE OF POLAND

Abstract Extending working life is considered an adequate policy response to population aging and workforce shrinkage. However, in some countries, like Poland, there are still no clear mechanisms supporting extending working life. Poland makes an interesting case, as while the eligible retirement age is one of the lowest in Europe, no plans to increase it are set. The aim of this paper is to present perspectives of older workers and employers on extending working life. We identify factors that constitute supportive and unsupportive working environments from the perspective of older Polish workers and show how employers perceive workers over 50 in the workplace. First, the qualitative component of the programme EIWO ‘Exclusion and Inequality in Late Working Life’ is analysed. We draw from 25 semi-structured interviews conducted between June and November of 2021 with men and women aged 55-75 years old working in private and public sectors in Poland. Secondly, the probability survey among Polish employers (n=1,037) was analysed to show the attitudes and perceptions of employers. Older workers working in the public sector feel less satisfied with the financial aspects of employment, less motivated to extend their working lives, and more often describe practices of pushing older workers out of the labour market. The analyses of employees give matching results. These findings highlight that in the absence of a governmental strategy, extending working life is more dependent on employers and employees that might differ among sectors of employment.

Educational Problems and Their Importance in the Context of Young Poles Experiencing Precariousness

The article focuses on exploring the relationship between experiencing educational problems in the course of life and precariousness in further professional career of young Poles. My primary interests are concentrated around the biographical experience in the spheres of education (especially in the context of young Polish workers undertaking studies) and work. I examine how the educational problems that were present at different educational levels may affect life stories and how they could be linked with the struggling on the labor market, and how they eventually led to increasing exposure toward precarious conditions as well as, finally, the potential of trajectory of suffering.&#x0D; In the analysis, I am using biographical narrative interview conducted with Julian, a young precarious worker who failed to obtain a university degree. My main argumentation is that educational problems he had faced during his studies are in complex loop with his precarious situation on the labor market and led him to experience subsequent phases of the trajectory of suffering. On the other hand, I examine the role of the myth of university degree as a generational driver of upward class mobility.

Labor Market Outcomes of Unemployed Czech and Polish Workers: Catching-Up with Austria?

ABSTRACT This paper examines the micro-determinants of unemployment durations and exits in Czechia, Poland and Austria. Our hazard estimates utilize EU-SILC data and identify national specificities in which individual, household and regional characteristics affect labor market outcomes. This concerns particularly the effects of education on job-finding probability, which are nearly absent in Poland, as opposed to Austria and, even more so, Czechia. However, the key results are common across countries: Unemployed women are less employable than unemployed men, even after controlling for explanatory covariates and the disproportionally high female selection to inactivity. The analogous findings apply to the elderly and those in poor health.

Economic Emigration from Poland to Latvia in 1928–1939

The economic emigration from Poland to Latvia was a consequence of the socio-economic situation in both countries. The internal determinants of emigration were agrarian overpopulation and poverty in the Polish countryside. In this situation, many people saw a chance to improve their lives abroad. The problem of the overabundance of labourers in rural Poland coincided with a period of economic growth in Latvia. At a time when Poland was struggling with overpopulation and an excess of labour in the countryside, the Baltic country faced scarcity of hands in agriculture. The emigration movement to Latvia lasted from 1928 to 1939. The number of Polish workers employed in Latvian agriculture is estimated at over 100,000 people. The aim of the article is to analyse the origins, course and consequences of economic emigration from Poland to Latvia during this period.

Warunki pracy w ramach globalnych łańcuchów wartości i rutynizacji na przykładzie pracowników z Polski

Tematem artykułu jest zbadanie powiązań między globalnymi procesami fragmentacji produkcji (GVC), rutynizacją pracy a dobrostanem pracowników w Polsce. W szczególności skupiono się na wybranych miernikach warunków pracy, takich jak otoczenie społeczne, intensywność pracy i jakość czasu pracy, w celu zbadania ich zależności od zaangażowania w handel międzynarodowy i rutynizacji. Połączone zostały indywidualne dane opisujące warunki pracy i dobrostan pracowników z danymi sektorowymi zawierającymi informacje o zaangażowaniu w globalne procesy produkcyjne. Wyniki wskazują na umiarkowany związek pomiędzy warunkami pracy a zaangażowaniem w GVC wśród polskich pracowników. W sektorach bardziej zależnych od GVC pracownicy otrzymują średnio niższe wynagrodzenie. Ponadto, związek między GVC a innymi aspektami warunków pracy jest statystycznie istotny, jednakże w ujęciu ekonomicznym ma wymiar marginalny. Podobnie rutynizacja pracy jest ujemnie skorelowana z wynagrodzeniami i warunkami pracy (z wyjątkiem wskaźnika intensywności pracy). Najważniejszą zaletą przeprowadzonego badania jest wielowymiarowe podejście do analizy warunków pracy, co znacznie poszerza dotychczasowy stan wiedzy.

Szkoła polska z lat ofensywy ideologicznej w oświacie (1948–1956) w świetle wspomnień nauczycieli

The aim of the article is to present the assumptions and methods of the ideological impact on the environment of Polish teachers by the communist authorities in 1948–1956 as remembered by teachers. During the Stalinist period, the Polish Workers’ Party (later the Polish United Workers’ Party) tried to instil in teachers “socialist morality” by means of various courses, conferences, additional education and the order of “self-education”. The following text contains a synthetic historical outline of the above–mentioned activities and their analysis based on the memories of direct witnesses of those events.

Gray Racialization of White Immigrants: The Polish Worker in Norway

The literature on racialization has typically focused on the situation of people of color in the Western world. In this article, we explore the analytical value of extending the concept of racialization to analyze symbolic boundaries that rely on and fortify the ascription of the specific skills and identities of white immigrants. The discussion builds on a review of the emerging literature on Polish immigrants in Norway since 2004. It reveals other everyday experiences of Poles and how they see themselves &ndash; and how others see them &ndash; differently compared to Norwegians and other immigrants and minorities. We examine how these processes of identity ascription are rooted in the Poles&rsquo; position as &lsquo;labor migrants&rsquo; in predominantly low-waged and low-skilled segments of the Norwegian labor market. We also demonstrate how their location in the productive structure has far-reaching implications that work to construct symbolic boundaries, setting the Polish migrant apart from mainstream Norwegian society. The conclusion suggests a modified racialization concept, &lsquo;gray racialization&rsquo;, to conceptualize the discriminatory situation of the Poles as an immigrant and minority population, which we find to better allow for an understanding of power relations and social inequalities than its conceptual alternatives.

Labour market hierarchies within and beyond the EU: Poland’s politics of migration

ABSTRACT This article shows how the hierarchised nature of the EU mobility regime is underpinned by member states’ policies in a major country of emigration such as Poland. Drawing on historical institutionalism, this paper documents the path-dependent approach regarding policies that have contributed to the outflow of Polish workers and simultaneously to meet the demand for labour at home. While concerns about the consequences of emigration were raised already in 2005, Polish governments have kept defending the EU policies that underpin this outflow and its hierarchised nature. Rather than to improve the rights of Polish mobile workers, Polish governments have defended companies’ rights to use ‘wage competitiveness’ as a method of increasing mobility. In response to the increasing demand in the domestic labour market, governments first tried return campaigns, but they have since turned to importing labour, especially from Ukraine. In this way, the policies of the Polish state have helped reaffirm the hierarchised nature of the EU mobility regime by exporting workers to be subjected to poor conditions abroad while importing Ukrainian workers to experience poor conditions at home. Thus, Poland occupies an unusual place in the ‘migration chain’, being, simultaneously, a source of as well as a destination for migrant workers.

Ghost Citizens: Jewish Return to a Postwar City [Dom, którego nie było: powroty ocalałych do powojennego miasta

Ghost Citizens: Jewish Return to a Postwar City [Dom, którego nie było: powroty ocalałych do powojennego miasta

From Cotton and Smoke: Łódź—Industrial City and Discourses of Asynchronous Modernity, 1897–1994

From Cotton and Smoke: Łódź—Industrial City and Discourses of Asynchronous Modernity, 1897–1994

NATIONAL MINORITIES IN THE EMIGRATION MOVEMENT FROM POLAND TO LATVIA (1928-1939)

The aim of the article is to comprehensively show the participation of representatives of national minorities among Polish economic migrants in Latvia in the years 1928 - 1939. Methodology. When writing the article, the basic principles of historical knowledge were used: historicism, scientificity, objectivity. Specific search tasks of the research were solved by problem-chronological means (optimal involvement of the thematic literature and source base); historical-comparative (analysis of various sources and formation of relevant research provisions and conclusions); critical analysis (critical attitude to various sources) methods. The scientific noveltyconsists of a given publication is the introduction into circulation of a significant amount of hitherto unknown scientific sources concerning the nationality structure of Polish economic migrants in Latvia in the discussed period. Conclusions. The economic emigration from Poland to Latvia was a consequence of the socio-economic situation in both countries. The internal determinants of emigration were agrarian overpopulation and poverty in the Polish countryside. In this situation, many people saw a chance to improve their lives abroad. The problem of the excess of hands to work in the Polish countryside coincided with a period of economic growth in Latvia. At a time when Poland was struggling with overpopulation and an excess of labor in the countryside, the Baltic country faced scarcity of hands in agriculture. The emigration movement to Latvia lasted from 1928 to 1939. The number of Polish workers employed in Latvian agriculture is estimated at over 100,000 people. Polish emigrants were characterized by great ethnic diversity. Poles, Belarusians and Lithuanians predominated in numbers, who during their stays abroad became the object of interest of representatives of the Lithuanian and Belarusian diaspora in Latvia.

Prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders, working conditions, and related risk factors in the meat processing industry: Comparative analysis of Iran-Poland.

Activities performed by people in the meat processing industry are very repetitive, time-consuming, dangerous, and require long-term downtime during a shift (forced-static position). This study aims to assess the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders and working conditions among Polish and Iranian workers to fill this research gap. A comparative analysis of the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) in developed and developing countries was conducted. After selecting the target factories, data was collected using Nordic and Mental Stress Questionnaires and 3DSSPP software with the participation of 110 meat processing workers, including 55 Iranian and 55 Polish. This study showed nearly the same prevalence of MSDs among male Iranian and Polish workers, especially in elbow, wrist/hand, upper back, hip/thigh, and ankle/foot. The overall prevalence of MSDs was relatively high and connected to the lower back (38%, 64%), knee (40%, 24%), neck (24%, 42%), and upper back (24%, 34.5%), among Iranian and Polish workers, respectively. Assessment of logistic regression disclosed that the workplace is considerably associated with the elbow and the ankle/foot musculoskeletal pain, with 2.34 and 3.81 times more likely for the production room, respectively, among Iranian workers. Age, gender, type of occupation, work experience, smoking, insufficient physical activity, workplace, working postures, and stress level all affected the likelihood of MSDs happening in various body regions in both countries, implying that both individual and work-related (both physical and psychosocial) aspects should be taken into consideration when evaluating and managing such complaints in this workforce.

From Precarious Work to Precarious Social Citizenship: Polish Workers’ Experiences with the Identification Number System in Norway

From Precarious Work to Precarious Social Citizenship: Polish Workers’ Experiences with the Identification Number System in Norway

Początki administracji publicznej w powiecie lubaczowskim po zakończeniu działań wojennych (lipiec 1944 – styczeń 1945)

Beginnings of civil service in the Lubaczów district after the end of the warfare (July 1944 – January 1945) This paper is an attempt to present the beginnings of civil service and units of local government in the Lubaczów district as well as organizing, supplementing and verifying the previous findings, particularly because the formation and functioning of local authority here differed from other areas. That was a result of a series of factors, among which the major one seems to be the fact that the authorities and the apparatus of security and public order were controlled by members of the Polish underground state. Indeed, there used to be districts in which members of the underground were part of local government and district authorities, however nowhere did they prevail to such an extent and for so long. In addition, we should notice the vague state affiliation and the Polish-Ukrainian war going on since the spring of 1944. The above mentioned factors and the lack of any structures of the Polish Workers’ Party (PPR) here were the reasons for that exceptional political situation in the Lubaczów district.