Izabela Florczak

The article focuses on the formation of legal consciousness among economic migrants from third countries to Poland as an important factor that contributes to their integration in the host country. First, the concept of legal consciousness is discussed, and a migration-adjusted model of how it is formed is proposed. As special emphasis is put on legal knowledge, an overview of the legal provisions of migration employment law is presented. Finally, based on articles and reports on economic migration to Poland, we ascertain how migrants acquire legal knowledge, what the flow of information is, where interferences are and how they impact migrants’legal consciousness. Based on articles and reports, we identify possible breakdowns in the information flow between key labour market actors (e.g. employers, public offices that manage the formal side of the employment process, and intermediaries, such as temporary employment agencies) and migrants. The complexity of regulations often leaves employers and foreign workers dependent on intermediaries. Without knowing the applicable legal provisions, much less understanding them, migrants tend to lack all types of legal knowledge. Thus, they may develop attitudes and legal consciousness based on false premises, further impacting their legal status in the host country. Even if they acquire knowledge, its quality can be questioned due to the fraud and deception that are often reported. Particularly troublesome is the limited contact between public offices and migrants, depriving them of reliable legal information.

Since Poland started the transformation from a country of emigration to a country of immigration, the legal environment related to the employment of foreigners has been constantly changing. These changes seem to be of a bumpy nature, although they implement in a relatively consistent manner certain assumptions that can be called systemic. This article will analyse main directions of legal changes related to the employment of foreigners in Poland, specifying at the same time the objectives that the legislator intended to achieve when introducing them. This will make it possible to show the organisational priorities of labour market regulation and the values that the national legislator aims to protect. Such an analysis, in turn, will make it possible to assess legislative actions and (in the case of their approval) to indicate further necessary improvements made in the spirit of the existing ones or (in the case of their criticism) to set new directions of actions. 

ASJC: 3308, JEL: K31

Migration of people is a multidimensional phenomenon that combines various aspects. Complexity of migration processes, its variability in time, diversity of economic, demographic, political or cultural determinants pose considerable challenges on the European labour market on many levels, starting from theoretical ones—related to the adoption of a uniform definition of migrant workers, and ending with the practical ones—relating to the establishment of the sustainable migration policy measures that would aim at safeguarding their fully-fledged participation in it guaranteed by various regulatory norms and standards. The article aims at presenting a rudimentary analysis of the specificity of labour migration in Poland against the background of European countries, in order to elucidate the deficiencies of the present regulatory approaches in addressing the phenomenon of sui generis peripherilization of migrant workforce in Poland. Its content has been enriched with comparative overview of the results of the case studies conducted in one of the key sectors for European labour market exposed to this phenomenon—namely pork meat value chain. Notably, problems related to wage levels and working conditions of migrant workers observed in this sector are as much industry-specific, as exemplary of wider global trends in industries that offer low pay, low status, little career advancement and stressful work environment.

* This article has been prepared during implementation of the project “Fairness, Freedom and Industrial Relations across Europe: UP AND DOWN THE MEAT VALUE CHAIN (MEAT.UP.FFIRE)”— VP/2017/004/0035 partially financed from financial resources for science in 2018–2020 granted for the implementation of an international co-financed project by Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

ASJC: 3308

JEL: K31

The artificial intelligence as a tool to guide foreigner employment policies?

The global migration is one of the most significant challenges facing global society today. Exactly the same statement can be applied to the phenomena related to the development of artificial intelligence. Therefore there is no doubt that the areas where migration and artificial intelligence meet, require the attention of researchers. The analysis of this article will focus on the phenomenon of labour migration in the context of creating the policy of employing foreigners by means of, or with the use of, artificial intelligence. In view of the current lack of any integrated national migration policy, it is possible to attempt to determine the directions of its creation in the future, taking into account artificial intelligence tools, the proper regulation of which poses a particular challenge, in view of the threat against human rights violations.

ASJC: 3308, JEL: K31