Goodbye Sunday Shopping in Poland - Hello Electoral Reform

where exactly my dear Atch - I don't know to be honest

@Ziemowit
how come u r still able to post? how come u r free?
@Atch
if u don't like it get out.

I'm not sure if you follow the Polish media scene very closely. In fact, the pro-government press is in minority: Gazeta Polska or Gazeta Polska Codziennie are still niche papers. "W sieci prawdy" (sic!)in its present form is a typical propaganda weekly and it will never reach an audience wider than that consisting of the hardline PiS supporters. Do Rzeczy is better, but is still behind Newsweek Polska, Wprost or Polityka which is in my view the best Polish weekly. So it is important to underline that we still enjoy the existence of the free press and free media in general. The qualty of the media scene is even better than it was under the PO rule when, for example, all major TV channels were singing unisono and any news on what is going in Warsaw in the context of criminal reprivatisation under the auspices of Warsaw's mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz must have been intentionally blocked on all the three major TV channels just because the mayor was vice-charman of the ruling party.

Isn't their media reform coming up? How much of that is going to be cracking down on criticism under the guise of foreign ownership?

In the opposite direction of the UK and Europe I hope, this will guarantee the safety and prosperity of the Polish people, unless of course the Marxist Trotsky led EU decide to harm Poland with punitive sanctions because it does not follow it's party line.

Well there's your problem Gumi. If you really can't see it, it surprises me. Now I'm not saying that the other lot, that is PO, are much better than PIS. They're not much cop either, but that's politics for you - somebody has to run the country. Their saving grace is that while they have their own agendas and are as self-serving as any other group, they're not fanatical. PIS is basically lead by a mentally unstable individual, detached from the reality of the 21st century, surrounded by sycophants who are happy to cream a little something of power, position, influence and wealth for themselves by supporting him.

Where is the country heading? I'll tell you. Mechanisms are being put in place to make it extremely difficult to get PIS out of power even after the golden days of the 500 a month etc are over and the electorate has become restive. Even if they can be unseated in an election (and that's questionable as they will now be directly responsible for appointing at least three of the seven officials who oversee the ballot boxes)their henchmen will be in every key area of the civic and public domain and it will take years to undo the legislation which has placed them there. Kaczyński himself has said that he expects PIS to be in power for twenty years - that's basically for the rest of his lifetime.......shades of Fidel Castro??? Interestingly, we recently saw PIS hosting a delegation from Latin America, including El Salvador and calling for greater links with Latin America.

Are you aware that Poland is on the 'buying list' as it's known for North Korean workers? North Korea actually sells workers to other countries, retaining up to 90% of their wages. There at least 1000 North Koreans working in Poland whose passports are held by their Polish employers and who receive a subsistence living allowance while working up to 16 hours per day. Now, this has been going on for years but what is PIS doing to stop it? Nothing. Funding Kim Jong's regime and nuclear weapons and colluding in human trafficking, charming.

Now, that is really appaling. A party who proudly holds "law and justice" in their name and which is able to fine Jurek Owsiak for using some swear words being part of his artistic image is not prepared to something to stop this kind of modern slavery executed in Poland by the North Korean sadistic dictator?


Are these the typical Polish words attesting the Polish traditional hospitality expressed from... Norway, Mr North Pole?

Does DRAIN THE SWAMP ring a bell ?
We have the same problem with the Democratic Party in the U.S.A.


Sources please.
I am sure Human Rights Watch would be most interested in these people.
Human Rights Watch is located in London, Berlin, Brussels, Paris so it should not be to hard to forward such information to them.


Which is much better then where they came from.
Did you read about the living conditions from the N. Korean who just got shot up while crossing the DMZ (Major violation of the treating to shoot across the DMZ which could be considered an act of war) while defecting from N. Korea ? (Trump has just about had a belly full, trust me)

How this N. Korean defector was full of worms and parasites from eating corn that he had rinsed off after it had past thru animals with diarrhea because there was no other food to eat.

The starvation rate is unbelievable among children in N. Korea.

Poland is doing them a favor as sad as it is.
Keeps things in perspective of how blessed our little white asses are while we worry about stores being open on Sunday in Poland.

When will President Trump (hallowed be his name) drop an H-bomb on North Korea?


It's quite the opposite, Johnny Reb, we worry about store being closed on Sunday in Poland.

My guess with N. Koreas latest launch of an ICBM this week that can now reach any city in the U.S.A. that it wont be long.

America has placed an unbelievable amount of nuclear capabilities in the South Pacific which is locked and loaded.
I don't condone Nuking N. Korea but there is little choice left as America is still technically at war with N. Korea.
N. Korea is also guilty of horrible human rights violations that are being ignored by the rest of the world.
It is long over due to correct the situation that Obama refused to address before it got to this point.
It is going to be horrible as Millions of people are going to die on both sides.


It is a figure of speech Z which is correct either way......clever of you however.
My point was that is it really something to lose sleep over if the stores close every other Sunday ?
Such a stupid ass law will just support the Black Market and cause a tax loss for Poland's betterment.
Even Jesus worked on Sunday when He saved the lamb from the well.

Trump isn't gonna do **** unless he's fine with hundreds of thousands if not a million dead in s Korea. The north has ww2 and soviet era long range artillery and mlrs pointed right at Seoul. Besides, putin and xi secretly support north korea because there's us troops in s Korea - too close for comfort. Im willing to bet that the tel system un showed off a few months ago was a Russian design. The last thing that russia and China want is a war so close to their doorstep and millions of refugees pouring in. Besides, this is total hypocrisy. Israel has a nuclear weapons program that has also never been inspected by the iaea or un. They also have an egregious human rights record and more un resolutions than north korea, iran, and Cuba combined. Atleast north korea doesn't bomb hospitals and schools.

The situation in Syria is more curious imo as the war draws to an end. Putin and Assad now want the us to leave Syrian lands since unlike the Russians and iranians, they were never invited.

Also most stores are closed on Sunday as it is. In Warsaw it's a little different since it's an alpha city. Every pole knows to do their shopping ahead of time on Sundays and holidays.

sure. The law is modeled after those in place in some other parts of Europe. First of all, it is only applicable to retail - bars and restaurants are not retail stores. Then there are numerous exceptions - shops at railway stations, airports, gas stations - all may be open 24h/d.

And somebody seems to have heard your concerns and specifically introduced exemptions for "piekarnie, cukiernie i lodziarnie" even when there are employees present which led to some speculation that even big supermarkets may open their doors on sundays if they have a bakery inside.

Other exceptions: "apteki, kwiaciarnie, sklepy z pamiątkami i dewocjonaliami, kioski, stoiska przy cmentarzach". The courts will have a field day in deciding which shops fall into which of that numerous exempt categories.

Most stores are not closed on Sunday - all Major chains open 7 days a week and the only places where stores close are small town high streets.

The law has so many holes in it that it will soon be scrapped - people should be able to go shopping whenever they feel like it. If any employees really object to working Sunday there are plenty of other jobs going

1. If the reason for Sunday closing is that 'people should have a day of rest on a Sunday, as this is a family day' then why are some people treated differently to others. Does a policeman, fireman, doctor, tram diver, bus driver, cook, chef, restaurant owner, seller of candles near a cemetery or even a housewife, a mother not deserve to have a day of rest too? Or are they all second-class citizens and only those working in large supermarkets are counted as first-class citizens deserving a day of rest. The Government suggests that smaller family run stores can remain open - surely those people also deserve a day of rest? Or are they second-class citizens too?

2. The other problem is that if large stores close on Sunday then the income tax which derives from the wages of people who worked on a Sunday will reduce. They get paid extra for Sunday working and may not be able to work extra hours during the week if the stores open a few hours extra. For some people (students, woman) these are the only jobs they can do as they are busy during the week.

3. Prices will also increase as the costs of keeping a store will have to be divided by 6 and not 7 days trading. This will lead to increased inflation, signs of which are already evident in Poland.

@terri

do you have the same concerns for Germany terri or just for Poland - just curious - and no, no changes are irreversible - if there is big public pressure to bring trade back on Sundays PiS will probably give in - similar thing happened in Hungary - however your concerns for the state revenues or inflation are greatly exaggerated - People will still buy things they need on other days of the week - the income tax on supermarket emloyees as a revenue for the state is negligible for Poland's budget

Jadwiga Staniszkis, who had been a fervent supporter of PiS Chairman Jarosław Kaczyński until the time when PiS won the parliamentary election and took power in Poland in 2015, now says the chairman should retire along with some other senior members of the party, but he simply has no place to go away.

- He should retreat from politics in his present state of mind - she added.

86,5% among those who voted in an opinion poll on the wp.pl shared this opinion of hers,
12,1% voted against,
1,4% said they did not know.

As she was a voice of reason and sanity. Her mad rants are just a sad testimony of the fall of the scholar. An astounding transformation from a respected professor into a screeching madwoman.

By the way all those who use her 'condition' for political reasons are scum.

I think Staniszkis should retire to be honest with her present state of mind

hahaha you are posting wp.pl poll as a reliable source of public opinion - Ziemowit I thought more highly of you

I bet the 'total' opposition would score at least 80 per cent in their polls as well - now compare it to the polls conducted on random sets of Poles like polling agencies do

@gumishu

and yeah Kaczyński should definitely retire instead of following parliamentary debates he keeps on reading Atlases of cats and similar hahah

This very copy of the Atlas bearing the dedication of the chairman was sold at an auction for 25,300 zloty and the income went to an Animal Rights Advocacy Group.

this is a very bad move in my opinion - the bloody Duck should have given it to the Kijowski fundraisers - after all he destroyed this crystalline fighter for democracy - Kijowski has no means to support himself now cause he can't find a job in this corrupt mafia-style PiS run country - oh well he can't find a job that pays 8000 PLN net at least

Why do you call Our Dearest Leader Chairman Jarosław Kaczyński names? Is it you Harold posting under the hat of Gumisiu?

for dramatic effect mostly hahah - and as a means of contrast - since you sort of praised Kaczyński which is a bit out of character

@gumishu

but yeah the PiS terror escalates - some Zofia Romaszewska dared to remark to our dear President of the Supreme Court that judges should be removed from office when they are found to be involved in politics (she mumbled something about Constitution) - of course the President strongly denied such allegations - and as a proof demonstrated video materials of her posing as The Statue of Liberty - PiS were deeply ashamed at this, as they should be

It's truly mind boggling to me that people still give a party like PO the time of day, after all the corruption and all the public money they have siphoned out, not to mention Tusk leaving the mess he made in Poland and running off to the EU and make big money. If he runs for president and wins, I will be stunned at just how stupid my Polish brothers and sisters can be. Or perhaps they're just forgetful? They have memories like a goldfish.

You say you prefer PO to PiS because at least they're not 'fanatical.' I think it's extremely fanatical to hate your own country and rob it and every turn. PiS might not get everything right, but at least they give a damn about their nation.

Anyway, why don't you name these fanatical things they are doing? Reforming a corrupt judicial system - is this fanatical? Or perhaps refusing to take in thousands of Muslim immigrants - wouldn't it be more fanatical to take them in, like PO agreed to do? How about trying to increase the falling Polish population by paying families for every child they have, to help them out - so fanatical. Much better to increase the population with foreigners from a different culture, right? Making big foreign businesses actually pay taxes to Poland - again, fanatical? Or this latest topic, giving people a free Sunday from time to time so they can actually spend time with their families - I mean how dare they? Not to mention that private small business will still be allowed to stay open, it's the big foreign owned supermarkets who make the average Joe [or Jakub in this case] work on Sundays, that will have to close on some Sundays. They really aren't trying to hurt the Polish population with this move, they are trying to help them. Whether you agree with every one of their moves or not, their intentions at least are good. This is more than can be said for PO.


It would be interesting to see some sales statistics for these. For example, I'm not so sure Gazeta Polska is so niche. They sell papers around the world, not just in Poland, and have their own clubs all over Europe and in the USA.

But I agree with your overall point, that the press is pretty free in Poland and in fact it is still the anti-PiS opposition that has most of the audience in the media.

it's not that anti-PiS opposition has more audience - it is quite debatable actually - it is that most media outlets are anti-PiS - while Trump is not very similar to PiS the media bias against PiS is similar to that of anti-Trump bias in American media

as for political preferences of Poles according to latest polls: about 32 per cent of the adult population (those who vote and who don't) support the current government - some 20 per cent (don't remember the exact number from the poll) support a party from the opposition - buuuut ... 44 per cent don't support either the government or the opposition

Yeah that's what I meant - I suppose I was going on Ziemowit's info but that still needs to be checked. There are more anti-PiS than pro-PiS outlets. On TV, I would say there are three main channels people watch for news - TVP, TVN and Polsat. Two of those are anti-PiS and will stay anti-PiS, whether PiS are in government or not. TVP is currently pro PiS, but if they lose power, it will be anti-PiS again, so that changes depending on who wins the elections. So currently 2-1 against PiS. Other TV networks are too niche to be counted.

As for websites and printed press, there is perhaps more of a mix, but I still get the impression that the anti-PiS titles have more sales, such as Newsweek and Wprost. Gazeta Wyborcza was of course probably the biggest anti-PiS paper around for a while, although their sales seem to be dropping fast, hence the rumours of closure.

yeah, when PO were in power it created a world unique situation were all major TV stations kept on criticising the opposition and were PR-tubes of the government for the most part (sometimes Polsat journalists were more inquisitive but only some of them while some were rabidly anti-PiS - Polsat was trying to pose for the most objective news source those days)

I haven't watched Polsat for more than a year (maybe even two years) now so I have no idea how or if they evolved

Well, as someone who occasionally browses it just to see what they are trying to say is going on, they've gotten a lot worse since PiS got into power. No impartiality whatsoever now.