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Protest over low pay and staffing levels at cut-price supermarket

PR dla Zagranicy
Peter Gentle 18.09.2014 08:59
Poland's largest discount store chain Biedronka may soon face employee protests against insufficient staffing and low pay.

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Members of the Solidarity labour union at Biedronka claim that its owner, Portuguese Jeronimo Martins, is maintaining low costs to the disadvantage of employees. The number of staff in many stores is too low to provide quality service to customers and salaries are low.

Unions are waiting for a settlement with the company until 25 September. If it does not take place, they will start picketing, first the network's headquarters, then chosen stores.

This would be the second such protest recently, after one organized by the employees of Biedronka's competitor Lidl.

“There are situations when there is only one store manager and one cashier in the whole building,” Piotr Adamczak from Solidarity told daily Gazeta Wyborcza.

He added that in some of the stores work schedules so often that it is impossible for employees to adjust to them.

Employees are also overworked and not paid accordingly, Adamczak said. Though Biedronka promises bonuses when hiring, in reality they are out of reach.

Biedronka's owner denied the union's claims in a statement sent to the daily. The company said that its employees may alert it about problems in an internal system. It added that it offers “competitive” work conditions and that its lowest pay is 20 percent higher than the minimum wage set by Polish law.

Jeronimo Martins has recently announced that its Biedronka network has grown to 2,500 stores. The company plans to increase that number to 3,000 by the end of next year. (kw)

tags: trade unions
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