The reason of my dismissal was quite abstract for me.
They kicked me out for making video or taking pictures of a dead body
transported from the warehouse to the van
of a funeral company.
Because that day the worker died on the site.
That man was from my shift and I knew him.
Actually, I was in the union facility in another place.
But when I realized that he this happened, I went to the warehouse to ask Amazon
to put me to something called
"after accident team",
which usually check what happened when there was an accident at work.
Amazon didn't agree,
so I went to call my lawyer and our union lawyer, and then actually,
I was the witness of taking the corpse out from the warehouse.
But then the security surrounded me.
So I went to my car and I stayed in my car and
Amazon saw it, all the people from HR department,
security guards, they surrounded my car so that they saw me in my car.
And after two months
they decided to do this.
They decided to sack me, which is
they broke a few a few rules because they did it too late.
According to Polish law, they have just a month to dismiss someone
for the disciplinatory reasons
and then the union didn't agree.
But they didn't care.
They kicked me out.
And then the reason was totally weird.
I'm still in shock.
They decided to do that for for such a reason.
So I had this conflict with Amazon about if I am able to make videos inside or not.
But this time, actually, this time when I was on the parking site
and when I saw that they take out the body of my colleague
outside the warehouse and they put it to the van,
I wasn't filming because for me there was no point. Like for what?
There's nothing interesting in that.
So I was absolutely amazed that they did it that way.
But probably that's the reason right now.
They just like strengthened their anti-union and anti-workers policy.
And that's just that's part of that.
So when we workers organize, we are putting a lot of pressure on the company.
So we want to also make sure that our work accidents
are not covered up by the company.
We are openly, during rallies, pickets,
talking to the media, talking to the other workers.
We make public the situtation about working conditions
and this is something that Amazon doesn't like.
So they put a lot of pressure on our union and our shop stewards
and the recent dismissal of the the key worker activist Magda
was an escalation of the anti-union policy.
We read this dismissal in the wider context,
because there is a lot of pressure put also on other workers
who are brave enough to be critical, to not follow
every order their managers are pushing on them
who are brave enough to not work as fast as the company wants.
Because also, we know how the speed of work is influencing our bodies,
how tired we are when we go back to our homes and we just need more space.
So this pressure on the workers activists is growing.
But also I think we we should not stop.
We should be more critical and more open and keep organizing.
That's the only solution to avoid repressions.
And now you're going to to fight for your reinstatement?
Yes, I'm going to fight for my reistatement, but I'm a little bit scared
that they will do everything to push the the court to pay me
a kind of compensation, like to give the sentence.
And that will force Amazon to pay me
compensation, but not to reinstate me in my work.
Which is possible.
It shows that basically the labor law is
created in a way which is very, very positive,
like good for for employers, but not for workers,
because even if I win, I will not be able to come back to work.
I will get just a very small compensation, which, according to Polish law,
is three wages and our wages for very, very, very low.
So if you work in a place with low wages, even if you win the case like that,
you are the loser.
And what what can people do to support you
in this situation?
So we started a fundraising, because probably
the case in the court will take like five years.
So I definitely need money for that, to run the case
and also to make a campaign against Amazon, because we don't want other people
more people to be dismissed, not only in Poland
but also in other countries,
because now we are scared that they basically change their policy a little bit
and they strengthen anti-union anti-workers policy in the company.
If they do it in Poland, it means that another country will be next.
And we cannot accept that.
So right now we need like a strong campaign
against union repressions, but also against workers repressions.
In some places there's no union, but still workers organize like in the US.
So we have to keep together and struggle against that
because otherwise we all would be in a
a very bad and difficult, poor position.
Now it's a time before peak time and we are also scared that they do that
to squeeze workers even more during peak time - in the whole world.
In every warehouse in the world.
So to stop it and to have a control over what's happening in the workplace,
we have to show them that we don't agree for any kind of repressions
against union members and against other workers.