The Open Day, scheduled for 16 October 2024, will be dedicated to workshops with the representatives of trade unions, employers’ organisations and state administration organised in the framework of projects:
(1) the European Research Council (ERC Advanced Grant), grant agreement n° 833577 – Project ResPecTMe (Researching precariousness across the paid/unpaid work continuum, PI: Valeria Pulignano (KU Leuven), https://soc.kuleuven.be/ceso/wo/erlm/respectme) – Awareness Workshop;
(2) international project ‘ENDURE: Inequalities and Social Resilience and New Modalities of Governance in a Post-Pandemic World” (PI: Mihai Varga, Freie Universität Berlin), co-funded by the National Science Centre (PI of the Polish team: Mateusz Karolak, University of Wroclaw) under the Trans-Atlantic Platform for Social Sciences and Humanities (T-AP) network (https://www.endure-project.org/) – Community Resilience Lab;
(3) NCN OPUS project ‘COV-WORK: Socio-economic awareness, work experiences and coping strategies of Poles in the context of the post-pandemic crisis’, funded by National Science Centre (NCN contract no. UMO-2020/37/B/HS6/00479, Co-PIs: Adam Mrozowicki (University of Wrocław), Jan Czarzasty (SGH Warsaw School of Economics) https://covwork.uwr.edu.pl/) – a multi-industry seminar and a final conference;
The planned duration of the event is 8 hours – 2 hours for each of the panels plus lunch/coffee breaks. During the event – scheduled in Polish – simultaneous translation from Polish to English and from English to Polish will be provided.
The participation in the Open Day is free of charge, but it requires registration at: https://forms.gle/ufR2YxjtLcXUQZzh8
The synopsis of the three workshops is provided below:
Workshop 1 – the ERC ResPecTMe Awareness Workshop
Awareness workshop will present the results of the ERC-funded project ResPecTMe “Resolving Precariousness: Advancing the Theory and Measurement of Precariousness across the paid/unpaid work continuum” that studied working conditions of platform workers in five countries – Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland. The workshop will focus on showcasing the status quo, as well as investigating how the situation of platform workers can be improved, in particular in order to limit the problem of misclassification and unpaid labour. It will adopt a comparative perspective and present regulatory pathways that have already been attempted in the EU Member States. The workshop will put an emphasis on the forthcoming EU-level proposition of the Platform Work Directive, its possible implementation, and enforcement.
Workshop 2 – the ENDURE Community Resilience Lab
The second panel will focus on the experience of foreign workers in Poland after 2020, with a particular focus on the challenges that migrants working in direct contact with others during the COVID-19 pandemic (so-calledfrontline workers) have faced and are facing. The basis for the discussion will be the results of the international project ENDURE: Inequalities, Community Resilience and New Governance Modalities in a Post-Pandemic World (UMO-2021/03/Y/HS6/00167), which conducted biographical interviews with people employed in the service sector, including couriers, retail and food service workers, among others. The panel will look at both the difficulties migrants face and the individual and collective attempts to overcome them. Special attention will be paid to the biographical, social and institutional opportunities and difficulties associated with the unionization of foreigners. In addition to the researchers, research participants, including representatives of migrant organizations and union activists from abroad, will be invited to join the dialogue.
Workshop 3 – the COV-WORK multi-sectoral seminar
During the third panel, we want to look together at the topic of the quality of jobs in public services during the socio-economic crises that hit Poland after 2020, including the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine and the related arrival of refugee women and men to Poland, very high inflation and rising energy prices. We will devote special attention to the working conditions of workers who were key to the provision of such services necessary for the daily functioning of society, such as education, health care, social assistance, as well as logistics, where essential employment is located in the private sector. We want to juxtapose the voice of trade union representatives, managers and researchers regarding the challenges and problems that have accompanied work in the conditions of the pandemic and subsequent crises after 2020. The discussion will be inspired by the results of more than three years of research on working conditions in Polish elementary school, hospitals and nursing homes, as well as in logistics centers, courier services and international road transport (National Science Centre OPUS project “COV-WORK: Socio-economic awareness, work experiences and coping strategies of Poles in the context of the post-pandemic crisis”, NCN contract number UMO-2020/37/B/HS6/00479).