Nearly 10,000 police officers may be on sick leave as part of their protest against working conditions, a Polish daily Rzeczpospolita has reported. Strikers’ expectations include improved employment conditions, systemic wage reforms and a reduction in service to retirement

„However, the actual scale of the operation cannot be determined as the Police Headquarters has adopted a rule not to disclose the number of people who have recently gone on sick leave,” the popular Polish daily Rzeczpospolita reports.

The spokesperson for the Police Headquarters (KGP) Katarzyna Nowak, assured the readers in a comment that the „continuity of service is being maintained,” and „the protests will not threaten safety.”

The protest is now most visible in Poland’s southern provinces of Małopolskie and Śląskie. 

The head of the Police Solidarity Protest Committee Jacek Łukasik, told Rzeczpospolita that the number of protesting policemen around Poland has already reached 10,000 and 12,000 it may soon grow to 20,000.

Rzeczpospolita wrote that despite pay rises, seniority bonuses and incentives for returning officers, there was still a serious shortage in the ranks of police forces with around 14,000 vacancies in the country.

„The police … are fleeing because it is impossible to work. Statistics reign supreme, there is often mobbing and rewarding one’s own people, not those who do difficult work,” Łukasik said in a comment for Rzeczpospolita.

The protester’s and police trade unions’ demands include “linking the police budget to GDP, implementing a 15-per cent salary indexation next year and allowing retirement pensions after 18 years of service”.

„We also want to equalise social benefits with those in the army, we want accommodation allowances and higher co-funding of holidays,” Łukasik added. 

Source: PAP

Photo: British Poles

Tomasz Modrzejewski