Cheap is cheap, no matter what they say : collective bargaining and working conditions in outsourced services in Poland

Outsourcing services in Poland has been following the general trend in global economy and experienced dynamic development in the recent decade. According to the estimations currently there are over 700 Shared Services Centre (SSC) and Business Process Outsourcing (PBO) employing over 200 thousand employees in Poland. However, outsourcing phenomenon should not be limited only to relatively large companies delivering non-core services to its clients. Outsourcing occurs also among SMEs while subcontracting cleaning, security, IT or other companies. According to the European Company Survey around 20% of establishments in the European Union outsource part of their design and development, production, and sales and marketing activities, but full outsourcing is still rare (Eurofound 2015). Collective bargaining coverage is lower in outsourcing companies. This may lead to weaker workers protection, growth of wages disparities and segmentation of labour market. Objective of the study is to examine to what extent the growth in outsourcing is triggering coverage problems for workers in these outsourced services and what are the collective bargaining practices in case of collective agreements gaps. The analysis shows collective bargaining coverage in outsourced services in Poland with a view to: identify coverage problems related to outsourcing practices; study the capacity of existing institutions in dealing with them; analyse the incidence of coverage gaps across different groups of workers; analyse the strategies deployed by social partners in order to address these problems and provide actors with some policy guidance in order to ensure inclusive and effective coverage. For the purpose of the study security and health care sectors were investigated. Moreover a case study of the company 'FMC Poland' was elaborated in order to analyse collective bargaining practices at company level. Outsourcing activities are not a subject to special legal definitions or regulations. Companies offering such services operate under general terms of economic activity