CANPACK FIP CREW APPEAL IN BRZESK
On 20 June 2024 we are going out on strike at our workplace, the CANPACK Food and Industrial Packaging concern. After months of fruitless meetings with management, we are reaching for the ultimate tool to fight for decent living conditions. You can help us. Please support our struggle by contributing any amount to the strike fund:
Why strike?
We generate multi-million pound profits for the company every year - with hard work over the years 2020-2023 we have almost doubled our net profit from PLN 35 million to PLN 67 million per year. Despite this, the salaries of almost half of the blue-collar workforce still remain close to the national minimum. The annual salary increases offered by the management barely compensate for inflation. That is why we have started a fight for a decent living. We joined the trade union Workers’ Initiative and entered into a collective dispute with the management. Our demand is an average wage increase of 14.4 per cent.
Negotiations behind closed doors yielded no results. We therefore organised a strike referendum. The turnout was 66.11 per cent - much higher than in the elections for councilors and mayors in Brzesko and Dębica, where CANPACK FIP warehouses and factories are located. 92.22 per cent of workers taking part in the strike referendum voted in favour of a strike over the pay rise. This mobilisation was helped by the company president himself. He outraged the workforce by admitting that meeting our demands would only cost him 1.5 per cent of the company’s pure profit from last year (1 of 67 million PLN).
Management has no economic arguments for keeping rates low. It defends complete control at the plant and forces the workforce into submission, fearing that meeting the demands will give workers a sense of minimal influence over the company. To this end, it prefers to risk destabilising the company rather than grant a 14.4% pay rise.
Why the crowdfunding?
According to the law in Poland, workers do not get paid for strike days. The low pay for most of us does not allow us to support ourselves during the strike. Our militant union is still small. Its funds are based on the contributions of its members - workers often also earning around the national minimum wage. Therefore, if you have the opportunity, we would very much like to ask you to support our struggle by contributing any amount to the crowdfunding.
International Secretary