Negotiating a decent contract. Setting boundaries with employers in Poland

I've been in Poland for a year and now have experience of working for three different employers. Next year, I take up a very good job in a nearby town but am anxious to avoid some of the pitfalls encountered with employers over the past year. I found the main sticking point to be that contracts simply do not reflect the workload and expectations of the employer sometimes.

So I wondering if anyone has experience of negotiating a decent contract with an employer ... I am due to sign my new one in a month or so (the employment having already been approved by the rector of the university) and am wondering just how much it would be seen as 'bad form' (or a 'pushy foreigner') to insist on a realistic job description? Up till now, if seems as if these things are kept deliberately vague in order to ask more and more of you ...

have the copy of the contract forwarded to you prior to signing, so you have time to review it and prepare questions, but also verbalize you expectations.

A realistic job description is very much an entitlement of yours, Rogalski. Poland follows the dictates of EU Law and such contracts are standard there. It's all regulated and there are not convenient opt-outs for those that want to pull fast ones by being vague and leaving you with no leg to stand on. You know as well as I do how the sharks are out and swimming when blood is leaked. We talked about it. Remember this, the most important is getting it right from the outset. When you have those conditions set, any changes come through discussion and signings on both sides.

Good luck!

as nice as that sounds, you are forgetting you are in PL.. good luck but really be ware of being that "pushy foreigner"

True but a pushover is in an even worse position from the start. They are trodden on.

PS Plk123, please open a space in your PM box. I have sth I want you to listen to. Thanks!

that's true too.. i would ask for them to be way more specific or at least question everything to try to get more solid answers and i would write all that in on the contract. i tend to normally be way more specific but i don't know how well that flies in PL as contracts and rules just don't work the same as most of the west..

The key stage is in the preliminary part. Beyond that, it's a HARD slog.