Low pay, poor conditions: These Filipino workers were drawn to Poland. Now they want to leave
Hong Kong Free Press
It’s early Sunday afternoon and Angelo*, a welder from the Philippines, sings Robbie Williams’ song Angels at the top of his lungs inside a flat he shares with fellow migrant workers in Sosnowiec, a Polish city of some 190,000 residents long known for its mining and steel production.
In the background, there is the clattering of cutlery as another Filipino man chops onions and throws them into a large pot with pork, amid occasional giggles from his young daughter. More than 6,000 miles away, in the Philippines, she is following her father’s steps via a video call on a mobile phone balanced on the kitchen counter.
This is what a regular day off looks like for thousands of Filipinos who have in recent years taken jobs in construction sites, factories, warehouses, hotels, households, and farms across the Eastern European country. But while Poland is quickly becoming a new migratory destination for Filipino workers, many have struggled to find their feet after arriving.
Frustrated by precarious conditions in Poland and lured by better job opportunities, some try their luck elsewhere in Europe – even if that means going undocumented.
“We thought it was a big salary, but it did not turn out that way,” Angelo said.
After working in places such as Taiwan and the United States, Angelo was in his home town in the Philippines when he started hearing about an agency hiring for Poland. As the Covid-19 crisis ravaged jobs and the Philippine economy worsened, Angelo didn’t think twice when his visa came through: “I had nothing, so I decided to go.”
Before leaving home in early 2022, he said he signed a contract that stipulated he would make 25 zloty (HK$48.6) per hour. But upon landing in Poland, he was made to sign a second one stating he would only receive 18 zloty (HK$35). “When I arrived, I called the agency in the Philippines and they told me to try to communicate with the [employer in Poland],” Angelo recalled. “But it was hard, it was all Polish.”
Angelo, 44, travelled from the capital Warsaw to work in a shipyard in the north of the country, burdened by a loan he used to cover 340,000 pesos (HK$45,160) in flights and agency fees. He said his agents refused to give him a refund, which prompted him to leave the job after a month.
Angelo eventually found work in Sosnowiec, in southern Poland, where he started making 33 zloty (HK$64) per hour as a welder. His salary, which varied depending on overtime, allowed him to send about 75,000 pesos (HK$10,030) each month to his family. Angelo’s wife is back home looking after their two children: a 10-year-old son and an 18-year-old daughter who dreams of studying in Canada.
Gazing out of a big window at a wintry grey day in Poland last year, Angelo lamented the fact he could not further support his daughter’s ambitions. “I don’t think I can afford it,” he said, noting that she may have to continue her studies in their home country.
‘From the frying pan into the fire’
This February, Angelo decided to leave Poland for the Netherlands, where he is now working as a welder. He is hopeful that he will be able to save more money. “I like it here,” he said, in his last text message before we lost contact.
One of Angelo’s roommates in Poland also left earlier this year, for Germany.
Low rates, wage theft, unlawful salary deductions, precarious jobs, poor living conditions, and the fact that they are not paid in euros are among the top reasons cited by workers who wish to leave Poland.
Lourdes*, a kitchen assistant in Poland, is counting the days until she moves elsewhere in Europe.
Interviewed at a gathering with other Filipino workers in Warsaw, Lourdes said she did not have the faintest idea what awaited her when she left her job as a domestic worker in Hong Kong.
The 31-year-old arrived in Poland nearly two years ago and has had three different jobs since then. The first one, at a meat factory, was the hardest. “We had night and morning shifts… I [was] standing up for 16 hours on my first day,” she said.
Soon she started developing signs of exhaustion. “I was always sick and having fever… because it was very cold in the factory.”
The accommodation provided by the company also offered little respite: “It was so crowded, I couldn’t sleep.”
Lourdes paid HK$27,000 in illegal fees to a Poland-based agency, which had promised comfortable living conditions and convenient transport connections. “I was disappointed when I came here,” she said. Lourdes noted that she called her agents multiple times, describing the dire conditions she was facing but “they did not care.”
Although many agencies offer free accommodation, some workers complain about being charged hidden fees or inflated utility bills. Several migrant workers also described staying in isolated areas of the country and having to walk long distances to reach the nearest supermarket.
As a kitchen assistant, Lourdes usually works up to 10 or 12 hours a day, six days a week and receives 20 zloty (HK$38.9) per hour.
“I am just waiting to receive my TRC [Temporary Resident Card] so I can move to another European country,” she said.
Although Lourdes’ working conditions in Poland have improved, she is convinced that in France she can be a domestic worker and make a lot more – even if it comes at a price. “I know it’s really hard to get papers there,” she said. “But [my friend] is already there and she gets a huge salary.”
The cases of Angelo and Lourdes are hardly unique. Almost all Filipino workers interviewed in Poland were familiar with the term “jumping,” which many used to refer to looking for better opportunities within Poland or elsewhere in Europe, often by circumventing official channels.
Liberty Chee, a research fellow at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in Italy, noted that Filipinos confronted with unsatisfactory working conditions sometimes end up seeking “to move westward, and there find themselves undocumented.”
Although some workers knowingly take the risk to leave Poland, others believe that their temporary resident permits from Poland are valid elsewhere in the European Union – an impression that is fuelled by social media videos in which recruitment agents often promote jobs in Poland as a gateway to the rest of the European Union. Such online posts are often filled with promises of high salaries, EU citizenship, and the opportunity to settle down with their families.
Chee noted that Filipino workers who find themselves undocumented in other European countries face major risks. “Apart from deportation or possibly jail time and a permanent ban, their job prospects are very limited,” Chee said. They will likely be “hired by companies that are by definition unscrupulous – who may fleece them, exploit them further. So they jump from the frying pan into the fire.”
At least three workers said they had tried to get a job elsewhere in Europe, such as Germany, but ended up returning to Poland because they could not find work or did not want to go undocumented.
Sofia*, 25, a former factory worker in Taiwan, only spent eight days in Poland before leaving for Spain, where she had a relative. She thought Poland could be a stepping stone to a better life in Europe.
But a month later, she realised she could not find a full-time job and decided to return to Poland, where she had a valid work visa.
Sofia lamented the fact that she was not given a direct contract with the fish factory for which she was initially hired. Instead, much like thousands of other workers, she had become an employee of an agency, which deploys labourers to different companies across the country depending on their needs.
Many migrant workers in Poland are forced to change jobs regularly, being subjected to different rates, working hours, type of work, and accommodation. Some even go weeks or months without a salary, waiting for their next job.
“I did not expect this kind of situation,” Sofia said, noting that agents did not tell her about it before she applied.
Life was better when she was working in Asia because she could send more money to her family and it was easier to visit them in the Philippines. “I expected a stable job [here],” Sofia said. “Sometimes, I just want to go back to Taiwan.”
An alternative to Ukrainian workers
While in 2017 only 733 Polish work permits were issued for migrant workers from the Philippines, last year alone authorities processed as many as 29,154.
According to a spokesperson for Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, most recent visa applications by Filipinos outside of their home country came from Hong Kong. From 2021 to November 2023, 2,980 visas were approved in the city, followed by 2,969 in Taiwan.
Dwindling numbers of Poles accepting manual work and an ageing population have triggered an increased need for Asian migrant workers in Poland, which – excluding Russia – has the biggest economy in Eastern and Central Europe.
A spokesman for Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Filipino workers’ “dedication and hard work have been valuable in sustaining economic growth in Poland.”
Filipino workers have also been described as an alternative source of labour after thousands of Ukrainians left their jobs in Poland to fight the Russian invasion. More recently, Poland has seen many Ukrainian refugees departing the country to seek better opportunities elsewhere in Europe, such as Germany.
Amidst this migration shift, the rising number of foreign workers taking jobs in Poland has been under heightened scrutiny following a corruption scandal involving the foreign ministry. The prosecutor’s office has accused officials of receiving bribes to issue visas for migrant workers from different nationalities, but the criminal investigation is still ongoing.
In April, the former Polish consul-general in Hong Kong, Aleksander Dańda, answered questions at a parliamentary commission about the issuing of Polish visas specifically for Filipinos in Hong Kong. An ex-vice minister and a former civil servant, who are now under investigation, had allegedly put pressure on the former Polish representative in Hong Kong to speed up visas for a group of 124 Filipino applicants in the city.
Mikołaj Pawlak, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Warsaw, said Poland has taken a “quite liberal” approach when it came to work permits, despite “strong anti-immigration rhetoric” from politicians.
He noted that a “murky administrative context” due to the lack of appropriate regulations and their enforcement has made it “easier for agencies to play dirty with migrants.”
The government departments have been “understaffed, underpaid, and procedures are getting longer and longer,” Pawlak said, which has created a market for middleman agencies and legal advisers who offer their services to migrant workers.
As the demand for Asian workers in Poland and other European countries continues to grow, recruitment agents based in different countries – some without proper accreditation – have aggressively promoted jobs online, often charging thousands of dollars in excessive fees.
Chee said “the incorporation of recruiters in a third country” was a worrying trend.
“You see for example Polish-incorporated companies setting up a satellite office in Dubai, who then recruit migrant workers there,” she said. Others develop partnerships with already established agencies or individual agents and share the commissions.
Although third-country recruitment is illegal according to the Philippine authorities, thousands of Filipino workers like Lourdes and Sofia have been hired while working in other destination countries in Asia and the Middle East. Poor pay, instances of labour exploitation, and the inability to obtain permanent residency have prompted many to pursue opportunities elsewhere.
Chee said some Eastern European companies “source workers from outside the European Union, and then have them work in Western Europe.” Unions have described this as “social dumping”, she said, referring to cases involving workers who are officially employed by a Polish company while they are actually working, for instance, in the Netherlands or sometimes on the other side of the border with Germany. “You are paid Polish rates, but your expenses are in Dutch rates. The cost of living between the two countries is quite large,” she noted.
‘All my friends leave’
Patricia* was among the workers enticed to Poland under false promises.
“All I knew was that Poland is part of Europe, so I grabbed [the opportunity] because of that. I thought the currency was euro,” she said, speaking on her day off from a shopping mall in the north of Poland.
Back in the Philippines, she had signed a contract that promised about US$700 (HK$5,465) per month. “After we arrived, it was different… We were surprised,” Patricia recalled.
She was placed at a fish factory in the autumn of 2019 and received about US$400 (HK$3,123) at the end of her first month – almost half what she was expecting. “We had no choice but to accept it.”
Patricia persevered through the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to reduced working hours and even to about four months with no work at all. Contracts based on “no work, no pay” are the most common among migrant workers in Poland.
But in early 2021, she managed to get a permanent contract at the same factory. That meant she would no longer be tied to an employment agency and would be entitled to benefits such as paid holidays and maternity leave.
Patricia, who now earns 25 zloty (HK$48.6) per hour, only started receiving a monthly bonus from her company after being hired directly.
Having made only a couple of Polish friends, she said that her experience in the country has been mostly isolating.
“I have so many Filipino friends who moved to other European countries. After they get their TRC [Temporary Resident Card], they go to France, Spain, the Czech Republic, Malta… because there is much more money,” she said.
Patricia, a mother of three children who rely on her, said she had also planned to leave Poland for France. “But when I heard from my friends that they were undocumented and you can’t go to the Philippines for vacation, I didn’t want to risk it, even for a big salary,” she said.
It’s impossible to know exactly how many Filipino workers leave Poland through unofficial channels.
Olga Wanicka, a researcher at the University of Warsaw, said that despite the challenges Filipino workers face, many decide to remain in Poland due to its safety, the cheaper lifestyle compared to other European countries, and the possibility of eventually bringing their families.
Migrant workers in Poland can usually apply for permanent residency after spending five years in the country and being able to score B1 level on the language test. Another handful of years is needed to get citizenship.
A spokesperson for Poland’s Chief Labour Inspectorate said the office paid “special attention to foreigners who increasingly migrate to Poland for work purposes, including Filipino nationals.” He noted that “inspections and supervisory activities” of workplaces had been conducted alongside training sessions aimed at raising awareness among migrant workers about their rights.
But, according to professor Pawlak, Poland should develop better work protections and stronger enforcement of contracts because that would be “beneficial for everyone in the Polish labour market.”
Scholar Chee also called for more safeguards for Asian workers across Europe. “Authorities – within the EU – need to recognise that oversight and regulation [are] lagging behind reality when it comes to workers from other world regions,” she said.
The Philippine labour attache in Prague, Llewelyn Perez, said they received 66 cases involving Filipino workers in Poland last year, who complained about issues that included unlawful terminations, unpaid or late salaries, and lack of legal documents to remain.
She said workers have been warned in post-arrival orientation seminars to be “very vigilant about offers of going to other EU countries without appropriate documents.”
In December 2021, her office handled a case involving nine Filipino workers based in Poland who were enticed by a Czech company, which promised to provide them with documents.
“After many months, the company was not able to work on the papers because it’s not in accordance with the Czech rules. The end result is that the workers stayed illegally and unfortunately they were sent back to the Philippines,” she said.
Lourdes, the worker who is planning to go to France, often gets messages from Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong asking about jobs and life in Poland.
“My advice is ‘don’t do it’… It’s difficult here. The work in Hong Kong is relaxed if you have a good employer and the salary is bigger,” she said.
“I tell this to my friends, but they don’t listen because it’s Europe.”
*Names have been changed to protect the workers’ privacy.
This story is co-published in a partnership between The Diplomat, Hong Kong Free Press, and the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. Raquel Carvalho reported from Poland with support from the Journalismfund.eu
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