Abstract
This study draws primarily on in-depth interviews with nine male Polish construction workers posted to Sweden in the early 2010s. The emphasis lies on their own experiences of being exposed to what they saw as unjust working conditions, and why they accept them or react against them. The overarching research questions are why Polish workers go to Sweden, and, more importantly, why they stay even when they feel unfairly treated or directly cheated by their employers. The main points of interest are wages, work environment, employment contracts and relations with different labour market players, including the EU. It was very clear that none of the Polish workers had ever heard of the EU Posted Workers Directive. Still, the lack of serious resistance, our study argues, was not because of poor knowledge about their legal rights, but was linked to a wish to fulfil a ‘life project’ back home in Poland, such as building a house, starting a company, being able to afford to start a family and raise children, or saving for retirement. This wish helped the workers to swallow ‘unfair’ treatment.
Introduction
The notorious Laval case in many ways sets the context for the discussion on how ‘old’ EU Member States treat posted workers from ‘new’ Member States, i.e. central and eastern European states acceding to the EU in or after May 2004. The December 2007 ruling of the European Court of Justice (ECJ; since renamed the Court of Justice of the European Union) symbolizes a wider shift in power resources between labour and capital, giving the free movement of services precedence over collective labour rights (Woolfson et al., 2013). Laval and the associated Viking and Rüffert cases resonate with the pressure companies are putting on unions’ capacity to defend previously established standards. In its rulings, the ECJ questioned the hitherto existing relationship between European-level market freedoms and national industrial relations systems (Warneck, 2010).
It is further clear that, from a workers’ or trade union point of view, the whole problem lies not at European level, but in poor national-level possibilities for overseeing and sanctioning companies. The subject accordingly raises serious issues regarding the cornerstones of the so-called European social model (ESM), including domestic regulation of the employment relationship. In the face of these ECJ rulings, the Posted Workers Directive can only guarantee a certain minimum level of protection to posted workers compared to resident workers, which is an exception to the general principle of domestic regulation of employment relationships. Similarly, there are no reliable monitoring tools or EU-wide monitoring system with the potential to reduce the problems of different treatment in the Member States, mainly due to the lack of reliable data on posted workers. A further problem is whether posted workers should be granted collective bargaining coverage, and if so, whether this should provide only minimum or full protection (European Foundation, 2010: 32–34; Woolfson et al., 2013).
It was no coincidence that the Laval case became the decisive battlefield for market liberalism and social protection. The construction industry was one of the most lucrative targets for central and eastern European Member States after their accession to the EU in 2004. Moreover, construction has a long tradition of migration, with the industry characterized by building workers having to move from place to place, often across borders. Consequently it was one of the main industries recruiting migrant workers, with the latter often exposed to bad employment and working conditions (Eldring et al., 2012: 21–22). On top of this, Colin C Williams and colleagues, drawing on the 2007 Eurobarometer survey on undeclared work, concluded that some 16 per cent of all undeclared jobs in the EU-27 were to be found in the construction sector, with the figure as high as 27 per cent in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Sweden) (Williams et al., 2011: 856–857). In other words, even poorly paid posted construction workers with poor working conditions find themselves competing with companies with even lower wages and labour standards, since the work is undeclared and thus never scrutinized by any authorities.
A number of academic studies look at how the ECJ rulings and the Posted Workers Directive are affecting industrial relations and labour standards in the host countries, investigating whether there is a serious risk of wage dumping and a race to the bottom (see Woolfson et al., 2013). For instance, in a study of posting in the German construction sector, Wagner (2014) shows that companies regularly use outsourcing to smaller firms to avoid the ‘German model’, i.e. works councils and trade union power. Loopholes in the regulation created on the basis of the EU freedom of services undermine regulatory practices and union power, providing companies with the means to exploit regulatory gaps in cross-border activities.
However, there is less research on how the posted workers themselves perceive their situation, almost as if scholars share a silent, common understanding that the prospect of better pay than in the home country compensates for poor, even hazardous working conditions. Although the new Member States have lower average pay levels and labour standards, most of them maintain some form of welfare state (Aidukaite, 2004; Cook, 2007). With the exception of the Roma communities in some of the newest EU countries, the urge to go abroad to earn a living is not comparable to the situation in some Asian countries with high labour emigration. For instance, as a skilled construction worker in Poland or the Baltic States can make a decent living at home, why face the risks connected to being posted abroad by a company of perhaps shady repute? The remuneration they can earn abroad is only ‘better’ than at home if they intend to return; for example, the wages the Latvian workers received from Laval were barely sufficient to live on in Sweden with its higher costs of living (Woolfson et al., 2010).
The aim, scope and design of this study
This article examines the working conditions of Polish workers posted to Sweden, with the aim of improving awareness of the self-experienced working conditions of posted workers in Europe and of shedding light on options for workers to respond, should they feel exposed to unjust working conditions. The overarching research questions are why Polish workers go to Sweden, and also why they stay, even when they feel unfairly treated or even cheated by their employers. The main points of interest are wages, work environment, employment contracts and relations with different labour market players, including the EU. In the course of the study, we discovered a further aspect – a ‘life project’ argument – which turned out to be of great importance.
One might say that our point of departure is biased, that we cannot presume that any Polish posted worker felt unfairly treated. Though true, at the time our study was launched, an in-depth investigation by the Swedish Trade Union Confederation, LO, had just produced evidence showing our assumption to be reasonable. The LO report showed how a complex network of subcontractors driven by the business logic of supplying labour at the lowest cost possible to the German entrepreneur Bilfinger Berger AG had enabled a lowering of remuneration and labour standards, as well as making the most of differences in the rules for taxes and social security contributions. Bilfinger Berger was staffed by posted workers provided by this network of subcontractors, which hired them from work agencies of Polish or Polish-Irish origin. In doing so, Bilfinger Berger was not only able to delegate work, but also to move responsibility for the observance of labour legislation and collective agreements down the ‘entrepreneurial chain’, in some cases even beyond Swedish borders (Jonsson et al., 2011).
Wages paid by such subcontractors and work agencies are far below Swedish standards (Jonsson et al., 2011). Other studies have shown similar patterns, featuring highly mobile subcontractors and equally highly mobile workers from the new Member States, for instance in the Dutch construction industry (Berntsen and Lillie, 2014). Hence we find our hypothesis plausible. It should however be emphasized that none of the above-mentioned studies dealt with the feeling of ‘unfairness’ that we will be addressing below.
Besides this, there are other good reasons for selecting Poland as the sending and Sweden as the receiving country. Poland is chosen not only because of its considerable outflow of skilled construction workers, but also because of the many subcontractors of Polish origin in the industry within the EU. Sweden is chosen since, due to the country’s highly regulated labour market, neither the Laval rulings nor the posting of workers in general has yet had any measurable impact on wages or employment. The unions have been able to curb the threat of social dumping better than in many other EU countries (Woolfson et al., 2013). There is however a possible effect on labour standards, in particular occupational health and safety, as the number of work accidents has begun to increase again in Sweden. Posted workers, in particular in construction, are over-represented in these accident statistics, especially with regard to fatal accidents (Jonsson et al., 2010). This is however not a disqualifying parameter for chosing Sweden as the receiving country in this study.
Moreover, not all types of inequality are necessarily experienced as ‘unfair’. It is not far-fetched to assume that Polish posted workers would accept that Swedish employees were better paid, as they had to cope with Sweden’s higher cost of living. The concept of ‘unfairness’ – a treatment or circumstance deemed unjust by existing social norms – is thus subjective. The notion of unfairness is further theoretically linked to ‘resistance’ to what is deemed unfair. No matter the kind of experienced ‘unfairness’, the exposed individual or group of individuals can be expected to react in some way. The nearest form of reaction is ‘resistance’, i.e. different approaches to what workers do when they do not do what they are supposed to do. According to a leading Swedish expert in the field, Henrietta Huzell (2005: 18), the term ‘resistance’ is usually connected to relatively transparent, systematized and often formally organized actions. Two additional, but closely connected, forms are, according to Huzell, however ‘misbehaviour’, i.e. misconduct and improper behaviour aimed at breaking rules, and ‘dissent’, which includes linguistic, normative and ideological opinions of a more informal, sometimes hidden character. Taken together these three concepts include strikes, sabotage, stealing, cutting production, absenteeism, time-wasting, as well as cynicism, sarcasm and ironic jokes directed towards superiors.
The resistance notion is akin to the more well-known concepts ‘exit’ and ‘voice’, as described in Albert O Hirschman’s seminal work Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (1970). The option to ‘exit’ is rather straightforward: an individual can by his or her own volition quit a relationship with an organization, business or state. For instance, the above-mentioned study of a German construction firm showed that the EU freedom of services, in the aftermath of the Laval, Rüffert and Viking cases, has created new lucrative cross-border exit opportunities for companies (Wagner, 2014: 15). But on the other hand, while working conditions and labour standards in Germany or any other ‘old’ EU state may not meet company expectations for flexibility and low wages, they also makes an exit step more tempting for posted workers. Why stay in a foreign country if it is no better than at home in eastern Europe? The option to use one’s ‘voice’ is an attempt to improve a relationship by voicing a complaint or suggesting a change, for instance by such collective action as a strike. If we are to make a distinction between Hirschman’s concepts and ‘resistance’, it may be that ‘voice’ and ‘exit’ are always target-oriented: such action always has a concrete aim, whereas this is not necessarily true for ‘misbehaviour’ or ‘dissent’. In our study we have looked for all these ways of objecting to unfair treatment – or the absence of them. Hirschman’s third option, ‘loyalty’ was however left out, as it is not theoretically realistic for workers to accept unfair wages or working conditions out of ‘solidarity’ with the company at the root, in their eyes, of the unfair situation.
Methodology
Our study draws basically on 12 interviews. One was made with a representative from the Gothenburg municipal government, i.e. a governmental body awarding tenders to construction companies. Two further interviews were conducted with representatives from the Swedish Building Workers’ Union (Byggnads) and the Swedish Municipal Workers’ Union (Kommunal) respectively. These three interviews were conducted face-to-face by Christer Thörnqvist and each took about an hour and a half.
The most important material however, are the nine interviews conducted with posted workers themselves. All were male Polish construction workers between 33 and 60 years of age, who, at the time, were or had recently been working in Sweden, and all had been employed on large projects in the Gothenburg region. The interviews were conducted in autumn 2011 by Sebastian Bernhardsson, a Polish-speaking MA student, under the supervision of Christer Thörnqvist. Each interview was about two hours long; three face-to-face ones took place in the workers’ quarters in the Gothenburg area, the other six over the phone. All encounters were recorded and transcribed. The interviews were conducted in Polish, thereby allowing the respondents to describe their experiences more accurately, using their mother tongue.
As the focus on such a narrow group does not allow for any ‘maximum variation’, we cannot take any account of significant differences based on gender, geography, social groups and so on. But on the other hand, our group has a high degree of ‘intensity’, i.e. potentially providing us with deeper knowledge of the situation and experiences of this specific group than a more widespread sample would. The posting of workers to Sweden has furthermore been most notable in the construction industry and, since the Laval case, with a particular focus on workers from the Baltic States and Poland. The selection of respondents was also to a certain degree governed by a widespread unwillingness of posted workers to comment on their situation. The interviewees were selected using a ‘snowball’ sampling process, starting out with a trade union ombudsman with a Polish background. The ombudsman had been in touch with a number of Polish workers, though they were not engaged in any union activities themselves. Despite the obstacles, the Swedish unions in general and Byggnads in particular have been fairly successful in reaching out to migrant and posted workers. Most notably, Byggnads has hired special ombudsmen of eastern European origin and with the right language skills, with a view to reaching out to posted workers and making them aware of their legal rights (Thörnquist, 2011; 2013). Hence, our interviewees constituted a group of people with little or no connection to trade unions in general when they arrived in Sweden. Though reaching conclusions on the operative enforcement of labour standards solely on the basis of small-scale interviewing of temporary migrant workers is not ideal, the workers themselves are the only ones in a position to see all aspects of the problem – host and sending country authorities and unions only see the part affecting them, and employers generally do not see any problem. Under such circumstances, the methodology we have chosen is necessary and justifiable.
Despite the sampling problems, our investigation followed Grant McCracken’s (1988) three general recommendations for the choice of interviewees in order to reach theoretical saturation: few in numbers – eight to 10 interviewees is enough to achieve a theoretical saturation, i.e. no new theoretically conflicting aspects will emerge beyond this number, given the selection criteria; strangers – the interviewees should not be acquainted with the researcher, thus maintaining an unbiased, scientific distance; not ‘subjective’ experts – the respondents should not be stakeholders or have other expertise beyond their own experiences.
One methodological concern was to find out how people perceived their ‘life worlds’, i.e. the meaning of everyday experiences in the world as they see it. In our search for common denominators, i.e. mutually essential features of respondents’ experiences, we found the ‘long interview’ methodology especially useful (McCracken, 1988; Esaiasson et al., 2009: 286, 292–3, 308).
There were considerable ethical concerns connected with our research. Construction workers of Polish origin posted abroad risk reprisals from their employers when providing information to journalists, trade unions or researchers. Such reprisals include loss of wages or loss of employment. Three main ethical rules were thus adhered to while conducting the interviews. First, all respondents were clearly informed that they were being asked to participate in an academic study, with any wish not to participate or not to allow the use of certain statements being respected at all times. Secondly, all respondents were offered an interview transcript to read or an audio recording to listen to before publication. Thirdly, all respondents were informed prior to the interview that they would remain anonymous, with a guarantee that all information provided would be treated confidentially. Accordingly the names used when citing respondees are aliases.
Interview questions focused on four separate, though interrelated themes. The first considered simple background information, such as age, occupation and affiliation. The second theme contained questions about employment conditions as well as awareness of, and opinions about, employment rights, including the respondent’s situation regarding wages, accommodation and legal status. Thirdly, we asked about possible ‘behavioural’ choices, aiming to identify the choices the interviewee made or did not make in response to perceived unfair working conditions. Lastly, the fourth group of questions was used when the respondent considered that the behavioural measures of the third theme had had no effect or were not available. With the aim of this theme being to shed light on the rather opaque area of a respondent’s decision-making process, it relied heavily on follow-up questions and subtle intuition.
Empirical findings
Recruiting and contracts
The recruitment of the Polish workers was little different to that of any labour market recruitment. Our interviewees got in touch with the companies by answering ads in the local press or through tips from former fellow workers or other acquaintances. Some of them were recruited internally within a company. Those companies characteristically had both an ‘official’ and an ‘unofficial’ international sphere. In such cases, the ‘unofficial’ sphere involved a network of companies owned by very few people, sometimes just a single family, and registered in different European low-tax countries. There was no official connection between these companies, and they could be dissolved one day and re-established under a new name the very next day in order to maintain business in a host country but still pay taxes in the low-tax ‘home country’ (see Thörnqvist and Woolfson, 2012: 531–532).
Certain contracts stipulated that the employee must accept reassignment to another country if the company deemed it necessary. This was not a problem per se according to our respondents, all of whom were perfectly willing to move where the work was. The problem with quick reassignments was when not all the paperwork followed the employee, this resulted in situations where he worked without proper insurance or tax documentation. This seems to have been a frequent occurrence, without the employee’s knowledge at the time.
The contract usually lasted three to six months, seldom longer. In some cases the contract was for a specific project that did not require any longer commitment. In most cases though, the short length was due to Polish taxation regulations, which stipulate that, after a six-month period, taxes are to be paid in the host country, where tax rates are usually higher. A review of Polish subcontractors in Swedish construction projects has similarly shown that workforces are rotated every six months in order to avoid payment of Swedish income tax and social insurance contributions (Jonsson et al., 2011: 4).
Also noteworthy is the fact that the posted workers sometimes had two contracts for the same assignment. One contract was valid in Poland and obliged the company to only pay Polish minimum wages plus a subsistence allowance for working abroad. The other contract’s only purpose was for it to be shown to Swedish governmental bodies, public institutions and trade unions, demonstrating that the entrepreneur observed the Swedish collective agreement. The benefit of this arrangement was – at least – twofold. On the one hand, the company could save money because subsistence is tax-free in Poland, thus only paying taxes on the minimum wage. The other purpose was to avoid conflict with Swedish trade unions. Since the contracts were valid for less than six months and taxes were paid in Poland, there was no legal supervision in Sweden, since the trade unions were led to believe everything was above board.
From a trade union viewpoint such a constellation is by no means unique, becoming a growing problem in recent years, in particular in the construction sector. In some respects the ‘false collective agreement’ has replaced the ‘bogus self-employment contract’ as Byggnads’s enemy no. 1. The problem with ‘bogus self-employment’ occurred when building entrepreneurs began to hire workers with so-called F-tax cards that made them ‘self-employed’ instead of employees, thereby avoiding social security and other related costs. This development peaked at the time of the EU’s first eastward extension, as construction workers in the new Member States subsequently no longer needed work permits, and thus could make better claims, as they were now European citizens. The new problem with ‘false collective agreements’ was however more difficult to cope with, as in Sweden it is up to the trade unions, not the authorities, to monitor whether collective agreement standards are met. With the Polish-based construction companies not giving Byggnads access to the sites, this turned out to be very difficult. Byggnads had to establish a direct working dialogue with the ‘exploited’ workers themselves, a process that for obvious reasons had its difficulties (Thörnquist, 2011: 116–122; 2013).
Wages, paid leave and accommodation
There was consensus among the respondents that Polish posted workers were paid less than their Swedish colleagues. Although the wage rates were usually on a par with Swedish ones according to the provisions in the employment contracts, remuneration per hour was in practice lower due to the higher number of hours worked. While the contracts specified approximately 160 hours per month, in reality workers put in somewhere between 190 and 270 hours a month, though still only being paid for 160 hours. A further major issue regarding pay and working hours was that companies paid no overtime compensation for work at nights and holidays. This meant that the employees not only worked more hours than stated in their contracts, but also missed out on the 50–100 per cent night and weekend rates normal in the Swedish labour market.
Another example of lower de facto payment occurred when contracts were set in Swedish Krona (SEK) at a fixed rate against the Polish Zloty (PLN). The workers received 0.40 PLN for 1 SEK, even though the exchange rate was higher, sometimes as much as 0.45 to 1. Moreover, in cases where workers were transferred from other European countries, there could also be discrepancies between the two contracts. A worker paid £14 per hour in the UK could be transferred to Sweden (sometimes under the banner of another EU country branch, such as Cyprus) and there receive just €8 per hour. Controlling for the usual exchange rate indicates that the worker should get approximately €16–€19 per hour. As for paid leave, the stories varied across the whole spectrum, from draconian provisions to no problems at all. Most of the workers seemed to land somewhere in the middle, meaning that it was easy to get leave approved, but of course it was unpaid.
Opinions about accommodation standards varied too. For almost all our respondents, accommodation was provided by the employer. Standards were perceived as adequate by half of the interviewees. However, the three people interviewed face-to-face in Gothenburg, all of them happy with their accommodation, mentioned that other posted workers working for the same entrepreneur had much worse quarters. The other half of our group disagreed, telling stories of makeshift barracks, unheated garages to sleep in, and three people sharing an 11 m2 bedroom. Even in cases where standards were fair, there were often not enough household appliances. In one case, 40 workers had to share two washing machines and three hotplates for cooking. This was regarded by our respondents not only as an inconvenience, but also as a safety hazard, with workers having to wait their turn to use the appliances late at night, thus not getting enough rest. ‘Fringe benefits’ had declined further over time. When the project started, the workers had often got, for instance, free pizza for lunch which, they stated, had been replaced after a while by low-quality food or no lunch at all.
Employment rights enforcement
The interviewees showed an awareness of their employment rights. Yet there was profound resignation as to whether the Polish government and trade unions would ever get better at scrutinizing companies operating abroad. On the other hand, western and northern European, and in particular Swedish, trade unions were held in much higher regard than Polish ones, as were Swedish companies and public institutions. This seems almost a paradox, given that the same interviewees perceived little success in Swedish trade unions combating the fraudulent practices of their employers. The workers were, nonetheless, pleased with the attempts, and often expressed gratitude for the trade union support they received – even when the help was not successful. It seems that they welcomed the fact that the Swedish Byggnads was willing to be a thorn in the sides of fraudulent firms – no matter the results. For those workers wanting redress, the trade unions were also helpful in putting them in contact with lawyers in Poland, which was much appreciated. The biggest concern, though, was the lack of sanction possibilities.
The interviewees were split into two distinct, equally-sized groups with regard to trade union membership and the assessment of its value. One group tried to ‘wing it’, not joining until problems arose; while the other joined the trade union ‘voluntarily’ when they were contacted, but had no illusions of how much help they actually could get. The unions in Sweden were by and large viewed positively when it came to action, though some workers thought that more could be done regarding information on rights. The following quote illustrates how one of the workers perceived the entrepreneur’s view on the trade union, reflecting the common view that companies are not afraid of sanctions: ‘There was a rumour that the company wanted to replace all of us in the middle of the project. Replace us with others from Poland that wouldn’t make such a fuss or go to the unions. Then they laughed and said that the Swedish trade union could do jack shit anyway, so they dropped the idea’. (Piotr)
Perspectives on Europe
The definitely most solid conclusion of this study was that none of the Polish posted workers had ever heard of the EU Posted Workers Directive. On informing them of the Directive, they were generally sceptical about the ability of the EU to impose adequate sanctions or provide adequate supervision of Polish subcontracting companies. This reflected however not primarily a lack of confidence in the EU itself, but rather their doubt that the Polish government and trade unions would provide the necessary help to make it possible. ‘I don't think there will ever be any perfect law for all Europe. A Pole will always be a Pole in Poland. You see? They will always cut corners and get away with it because of all the corruption. The unions in Poland are in the pockets of the big firms’. (Artur)
Moreover, there was a realization that, with an increasing number of foreign companies operating in a country and in the present legal context, the host country might have a problem with tax revenues since these companies did not pay much tax there. There was consensus among the workers that more external controls, investigations and supervision were the key to solving the problems, especially concerning the ‘moral hazard’ of some of the Polish companies. There is, however, no clear answer as to how this could be achieved, due to the lack of confidence in the EU’s possibilities to obtain correct information from the Polish stakeholders. It should be added that this aspect is not as specific to Poland as some of our interviewees might have thought. There is a common understanding among scholars that the core of the problem lies not at the European level, but with poor national-level sanction possibilities (Davis, 2002).
Resistance
The overall assessment of the extent of reciprocity and fairness in their relationship to the employer was, without exception, deemed unfair, though arguments differed: for some interviewees it was just the remuneration, for others it was the wages and accommodation taken together. It seems never to have been solely about housing standards. Similarly, safety was of no great concern. According to most of the interviewees, safety is paramount and thus not tampered with. There were incidents mentioned, but they were either brushed aside as uncritical, or as being the centre of a dispute with a manager.
Returning to Hirschman’s (1970) classifications, the voice option did not normally seem realistic, despite many complaints about the work situation. This was primarily due to the lack of sanction possibilities on the part of public authorities and trade unions. This notion of ‘lawlessness’ was upheld by practically all the posted workers in this study. But even so, this had not totally prevented workers from voicing their opinions vis-à-vis management in an attempt to improve conditions. Such attempts were never made by a single individual, but by groups of workers. The first instance in addressing any collective grievance was always the local site manager. He in turn normally took up the matter with the next level where, in all important cases, it was rejected.
The next possibility was to contact the local trade union branch, though in most cases its hands were tied because of the ‘bogus’ employment contracts presented to them. With Byggnads unable to prove that the contract was false, it was not in a position to initiate blockades or strikes. Another obstacle was trade union bureaucracy, with long processing times meaning that in many cases workers’ short-term contracts had expired before any measures were taken. The local Byggnads branches were nonetheless held in high regard thanks to the feeling the interviewees had that the unions actually did what they could for them – according to them, this was seldom the case in Poland.
Only one of our interviewees experienced ‘voice’ in the form of a real (wildcat) strike during his stay in Sweden. Or in his own words: ‘We actually went on strike for one day. Not getting free meals as promised is one thing, then not getting the salary on time – that’s not good but we could take it. But when the late salary finally came and it was obvious they cheated us on hours – that was the last straw. The company headquarters wanted to fire us all and replace us with some guys who wouldn’t make so much fuss. But the Swedes said ‘no’! They said that we were an excellent crew and saved our jobs. The Swedes are always kind’. (Stefan)
There is little evidence of other kinds of resistance, such as intentional neglect on the part of the workers with the intention of ‘getting even’ for the unfair conditions. There seem to be several reasons for this. First, many of the interviewees highlighted their sense of professional pride. Despite the unfairness of the situation, it was important to maintain a good standing and respect in the construction labour market. Yet, the eagerness to do a good job was not solely a matter of sheer professional pride; there were more rational reasons too, for instance not to be caught dragging one’s feet. As one respondent said: ‘I just wanted to be done with it and do a good job in the process. I wouldn't of course prolong my stay or extend the contract under any circumstance. Enough was enough. Some people went home a little earlier, just after the main sequence was done. I and some others stayed to the end of the contract and cleaned up. We refused to lose face over this. We did an excellent job and no one can blame us for anything’. (Kazimierz)
Hirschman (1970) highlighted the possibility of ‘exit’, i.e. quitting a market or a job if it did not meet one’s expectations. Our respondents did not make use of this form of protest, despite the feeling of an unfair working relationship. One reason was that it could be difficult to find a new job in Poland or elsewhere. The workers were very much aware of the rapid changes in the job market. The logic was that if competition for jobs increased, so did the risk that they would have to stick with unscrupulous entrepreneurs in dishonest firms – and a bad employer was at least better than no employer at all. And seemingly even more important: even if they could find jobs at home, pay in Poland was deemed to be less than in Sweden – even when the Swedish-based company was cheating. Another reason for not quitting was the threat of financial sanctions. Most employment contracts were constructed in such a way that the employee actually owed money to the company if he left before the contract’s expiration date. The reason was usually that the employer had paid for the employee’s housing in advance and thus would deduct the remaining time not used from the worker’s remuneration. Another interesting aspect is that there seems to be a difference between workers from different areas in Poland, though this was only evidenced in two interviews. In one, the interviewee, who lived in the Warsaw region, explained that if the working conditions were too bad or the wages lower than promised, he could just go back to Poland; construction activity in the Warsaw area was increasing and it would be easy to find a new job there. The other interviewee came from a small village far from Warsaw, and for him it would be a just as big and uncertain step to look for a job in the Polish capital as in Sweden, with the result that he was more eager to hang on to his Swedish job even if the working conditions or the housing did not fully meet his expectations. In other words, the ‘experienced’ distance to Sweden was no longer than to Warsaw.
The life project
There was, however, one reason to stay that had little to do with the market or threats from the company. It is evident that the main reason for all our interviewees to work abroad was to earn more money over a limited time-span than would be possible in Poland; money that was nearly always meant to finance a life project, i.e. something the worker wished to realize in a certain space of time. This could be to build a house, start up a company, start a family and raise children, or to save for retirement. Though the actual life projects differed, the drive and determination to realize that project seemed to be one thing all workers had in common and that kept them in employment, no matter whether the company manipulated wages or working conditions.
The life project was weighed against all other factors and the determination to complete the project seems to have been not only a very powerful, but in fact the decisive driving force. It was further connected to what can best be expressed as an ‘avoidance of shame’, with the worker wanting to avoid returning home empty-handed. Last but not least, the completion of the life project can be linked to the fact that most employment contracts were short-term contracts, lasting three to six months. Longer contracts, lasting a year or two, were similarly regarded as short-term contracts by the respondents. Viewed in combination with life project realization, short-term endurance is a key factor in understanding the choice of no resistance. ‘Sometime, quite often really, I just think “to hell with it, better to live in poverty than enduring this shit”. Then I come to my senses and remember I have a child. I have to endure, for her’. (Artur)
Conclusion: the life project
Describing our research problem above, we discussed the possibility that our point of departure was biased, that we could not actually presume that Polish posted workers were or felt unfairly treated. We argued that, judging from previous empirical evidence, this was however a fair hypothesis. We can now conclude that we were right in doing so; the working conditions of Polish posted workers in Sweden are often unfair, both in an objective and subjective sense. Our study shows that a lack of statutory supervision by not just Sweden, but by Member States at large and lack of transparency have created a breeding ground for illegal practices of Polish companies, often subcontractors to larger firms, operating in Sweden. This unfairness manifests itself mostly in fraudulent practices regarding wage payment and working hours.
Fighting these unfair conditions is on the whole not as effective as the workers, the trade unions and perhaps even the EU would like. Posted workers run a major risk of not being able to do anything that would tip the scales in their favour. This in turn leads to a change in attitude allowing them to justify their continuing stay abroad under unjust conditions. In other words, neither voice nor exit are realistic forms of resistance. Social and legal structural factors such as the fear of unemployment, even lower wages at home, competition on EU markets, lack of supervision by national authorities and diverging tax laws, together set a context that makes it difficult for the posted workers to fight unfair working conditions. This in turn leads to a certain ‘don’t rock the boat’ mentality. The logic is that when competition for jobs increases, workers on fair contracts with decent firms will have to turn to the unscrupulous firms. Moreover, there is a ‘pride factor’ preventing skilled construction workers from employing other forms of resistance, for instance misbehaviour or dissent. Even when feeling wrongly treated by the employer, any form of passive resistance is neutralized by the feeling that one should do one’s work honourably, delivering a ‘good product’ by working hard regardless of employer deceit.
However, the one thing all workers had in common and which gave their stay in Sweden meaning was their life project back home in Poland, such as building a new house, raising a family or retirement. It is worth emphasizing that these motivations were not exclusively the domain of younger workers; funding a life project was a prime motivator for all ages. Accordingly, higher wages than in Poland were not per se enough to leave one’s family and go abroad to work; they had also to be high enough to finance the life project. Where this was the case, the unfair treatment, including sometimes hazardous working conditions, was endurable without too much protest or objections. Or as our interviewee ‘Artur’ put it, you can endure a lot if you do it for your daughter at home in Poland.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements and funding
The authors acknowledge research funding support for the current article from FORTE, the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare [Project Number 2011-0338 ‘The Swedish Model and Baltic Mobility: Harmonisation or Social Dumping? A Study of Labour Migration between the Baltic States and Sweden’].