Volvo uses the Crisis to Exploit Workers

Unions at the Volvo factory in Wroclaw, led by Solidarity, signed an agreement with the firm some while ago negotiating new work contracts during the "crisis". Last year the Volvo plant in Tampere was closed to move production of 8700 model buses to Wroclaw. Shortly afterwards, the company started to talk about "the crisis" and about redunancies - even though it had just moved production there from Finland.

The unions signed the agreement whereby workers would adjust their working hours to the amount of orders placed. If there were fewer orders, they would accept reduced working hours, and if there were more orders - they would work overtime FOR FREE!
In exchange for this quite generous offer, the company agreed not to fire anybody.

But Volvo has been firing people anyway. The Labour Inspectorate confirmed that 191 people were fired between August and March 2008. Only two were fired officially for economic reasons and received proper severance pay. Workers claim that more and more people are being fired each week.

Has the crisis hit Volvo so badly? On the contrary, orders haven't fallen since last year. The result is that the remaining workers are forced to work overtime and even sometimes weekends for free.

What about new employees? Volvo wants to hire trainees from the university. Trainees in Poland don't necessarily need to be paid and now, if they are paid, it is often by the Labour Office using public money.

The workers are furious that such an unfavourable deal was signed thinking it was to "save the firm" and to "save their jobs".