Labour Market Challenges in the Pork Value Chain in Poland

The pork value chain is created by a network of interconnected suppliers and customers, offering meat products to final consumers. Pork production and processing in Poland is highly fragmented, which together with an increasing global pressure weakens the engagement of institutional actors in the social dialogue. This makes difficult to combat negative labour market phenomena such as low wages, long working hours, and lack of appropriate contracts. In order to diagnose the specificity of labour market challenges in Poland and possible ways of combating them, structured interviews with key stakeholders were conducted. They confirmed the existence of abusive practices in the local pork industry and the need for strengthening the social dialogue. Conclusions from the research include recommendations for further exploration of the issue.