Infrastruktura delegowania pracowników: przykład transgranicznego sektora opieki domowej
Posting infrastructure: the example of the cross-border home care sector

Summary/Abstract: Although the scale of the posting of workers under the free movement of services is much lower than that of the free movement of workers, the issues around posting of workers have become increasingly important in the last few years. In particular, employers developed strategies for circumventing the law and adapting to the changing legal reality after 2014. The aim of this article is to explain the conditions under which employers, including temporary work agencies, post workers from Poland to other countries of the European Economic Area. We pose the question about the strategies and daily practices undertaken by those employers posting workers in the home care sector. Poland is an key country in terms of the number of workers posted to other countries. Employing the concept of migration infrastructure (Xiang, Lindquist 2014), we describe five main dimensions conditioning how employers post workers: social, commercial, non-governmental, regulatory and technological dimensions. The analysis of the empirical material gathered between 2018 and 2021 shows that despite the barriers and impediments in the process of posting workers, companies take advantage of particular circumstances and support offered by commercial actors. The strategies taken by employers are also influenced by the specificity of the home care industry itself, which is dominated by informal practices, temporariness and a deficit of skilled workers.

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