Zabka Convenience Store Shut Down after Visit from ZSP

A group of people went inside to find the manager and a group stayed outside with a banner and leaflets. According to the law in Poland, such shops cannot be open on Sundays unless the owner or a family member (from a list of allowed members) are working there. Employees or contracted labor should not be running the shop on these days and, if they do work on Sundays, they are entitled to remuneration. Zabka's policy has been to let the individual shop owner decide whether or not to keep the shop open. Most Zabkas in Poland are open on Sunday, often the only shop open in the neighborhood and this is often their business day as people have few choices of where to shop.

Many owners actually appear in the shop one day a week: on Sunday, to at least be physically present to avoid breaking the law. We assumed that this would be the time we would be most likely to find the owner. However, he was not there.

A group from ZSP went into the shop to demand to see the owner, but he indeed was not working on Sunday so we asked why the worker was there. The shop should have been closed. However, this shop is open every Sunday until 8PM. However, when the worker talked to the boss and he understood that this was being filmed, a quick decision was made to close the shop down. So the store shut down more than 6 hours before closing time (on the busiest day).

We suppose that this had to be more expensive than just paying the worker what she is owed. This can happen if you cheat workers. We plan to return again to find the owner and get the money.

Sometime after we published the video of our visit to Zabka, other workers from Zabka who had seen it wrote to tell about the problems in their store. Maybe some new actions will follow.

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