Police deliver forks to Tusk gov’t in pay claim protest

Police officers across Poland have sent over 2000 old forks to Warsaw Police Headquarters, claiming that Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government has failed to fulfill election promises.

The ‘hunger pay protest’ saw 2070 forks delivered to Warsaw by Feb. 5 in response to new pay rates for officers announced by Minister of Interior and Administration Grzegorz Schetyna.

Tusk’s government has increased salaries by 520 zloty gross per month with the lowest pay scale set at 2,200 zloty gross per month for first year officers. Police members behind the protest claim that this is not enough.

The Police union is not officially involved in the pay claim protest, though union representative Antoni Duda empathized with the officer’s frustration.

Police members claim that promises for new equipment, vehicles and facilities have also not been met by the government.

Figures released by the Police Department in response to these claims state nearly 870 mln zloty was spent in 2007 on equipment and modernizing the force, which will quadruple in the current year with 4.58 bln zloty budgeted for the department overall.

To date over 6000 patrol cars, 44,000 pieces of armor and more than 30,000 uniforms are amongst the items purchased for police services since last year.

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