Over the last 2,5 years of activity of UHR, holding over a dozen seminars, answering over a thousand questions and providing a helpline for Ukrainian workers we continuously deal with a very low level of understanding of Polish labour code among majority of Ukrainian community in Poland. This causes their disenfranchisement in face of being underpaid, unacceptable work conditions or discrimination in the workplace. In some case Ukrainian used as a threat or a bargaining token against Polish workers attempts to rise their wages, fuelling a possible conflict. This can be further deepened by a (miss)understanding of workplace self-organisation such as trade unions based on the negative experience of such in Ukraine, which is far from the beneficial role it plays in the Polish context.
Based on available statistical data about 20% of youth entering Polish workforce over the next four years will be Ukrainian. Youth moving into the workforce will in term also lessen the burden on their mothers, freeing up their time to take up economic activity as well, or expand their working hours – again increasing refugee and migrant participation in the market. This will further the seismic shift in a country with traditionally high rates of emigration and very low immigration.
The best possible long-term solution is by educating, particularly the more open and eager to learn and improve their status, younger generation. By providing key elements of the local labour code in an easy and where possible entertaining form and encouraging participation in local trade unions we can work towards a sustainable and long-lasting solution to the possibly dangerous rift between Ukrainian and Polish workers.
UHR has already provided such educational materials, and consultations. With this grant we aim to expand on our earlier work, focusing on short video-form materials published on social media we already have experience producing, but focusing them particularly on the challenges of the youth and promoting them to this demography.
On the other hand, we aim to record (audio or video) our earlier written materials to improve their accessibility, including for populations with vision disabilities and these with secondary illiteracy (as of yet unrecognised but likely matching high Polish levels).
We expect the inter-generational dynamics of refugee communities, such as dealing with language barrier or child’s entry into the jobs market can be a driving factor in seeking and sharing such information, thereby achieving synergic effect. As usually in our activity, we will encourage active participation from our beneficiaries, encouraging publicly asking questions to facilitate more interaction.