Wroclaw, Poland – Rocio Flores, a 44-year-old mother of three, stood trembling in the bathroom of a dilapidated country house in Blaszki, a village in central Poland.

Her breath was shallow as her heart pounded. Minutes earlier, a man from the agency she had been working for had waved a gun at her and five of her Colombian coworkers. It was August 2023.

“In my homeland, Mexico, when a man reaches for his gun, it is because he wants to use it,” she told Al Jazeera. “I thought I was going to die there, I thought my body would be thrown into the cornfields, and I would never see my children again.”

The dispute began when the agency representative announced that the workers’ shifts at the Plukon chicken processing plant would be extended to 12 hours due to staff shortages. The group had refused and demanded the wages they were owed. A heated argument followed. Then the man reached for his gun.

Al Jazeera has reviewed the video of Flores’s ordeal recorded by one of the workers, and identified the gunman as a Ukrainian. The man was then employed by a contractor company that worked with Jober24, a temporary recruitment agency supplying staff to Plukon.

In the video, following a physical altercation with one of the Colombian employees, the man in question walks to his car and pulls a gun. While cursing the migrants in Polish, he threatens to call the authorities.

“If the police come, you will get the f*** out [of the country],” he says. Four people among the group were undocumented.

Before 2022, it was Ukrainians on temporary permits who powered Polish factories, farms and food plants. But since Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainian refugees gained greater access to Poland’s labour market and many sought better job opportunities. In search of cheap labour, temporary work agencies began recruiting from elsewhere.

Latin America became the new source. Citizens of Colombia, Peru, Mexico, and other countries from the region could enter the European Union without visas, stay for three months and apply for work permits while already in Poland.

This changed in June 2025, when Poland introduced a new law. Migrants must now apply for work permits in their home countries. There is also now greater oversight on temporary work agencies, which used to routinely break employment and tax laws. Penalties for violations have also increased.

Despite the changes, however, it is still unclear whether the situation of migrant workers will improve.

For Colombians, who have faced inflation, unemployment, and Venezuelan migration back home, Poland seems like a chance for a better life.

Recruitment often begins with local agencies that arrange travel. Those recruited are then handed over to Polish partners.

“Often, people are lied to from the beginning,” said Irena Dawid-Olczyk, head of La Strada, an anti-trafficking group. “Some agencies lend them money for the ticket. That debt ties them to exploitative conditions. It’s a form of bonded labour.”

Official data shows that Poland issued just more than 4,000 work permits to Colombians in 2022. By 2024, the number had soared to nearly 38,000. But in many cases, agencies do not apply for work permits on migrants’ behalf, leaving people undocumented and at the mercy of employers. It is unclear how many Colombians are living without status in Poland.

“We believe that apart from Latin Americans, migrants from Bangladesh, the Philippines and Central Asia are also at risk,” said Dawid-Olczyk. “But many don’t trust the authorities enough to report abuses.”

After the incident, Flores and her colleagues took their video recording to the local police station. According to her, officers located the man, but identified him as a Georgian national and claimed the gun was a toy. They allegedly encouraged the migrants to reconcile with him rather than press charges.

The police told Al Jazeera that they did not pursue the case because none of the group had filed a formal complaint. In a statement to Al Jazeera, the Plukon plant said that the man with the gun was not directly employed by their company or by Jober24.

Eventually, Flores and the others, who work for an outsourcing company, received their payment: 17 zloty ($5) an hour, below the legal minimum wage of 21 zloty ($6) at the time. In their statement, Plukon said that they always paid their workers wages in line with the Polish law.

Flores had arrived in Poland  to find a peaceful life in Europe, far from Mexico’s violence and poverty. Her plan has been for her two daughters and son, who live with her parents, to join her once she settles down.

‘Poland will need migration to sustain its economy’

In Colombia, TikTok feeds overflow with images of Poland’s medieval castles, dense forests, and cobblestone old towns. Influencers describe the country as a place where Latin Americans can earn well, travel and enjoy a better life.

“People hear, ‘My cousin is making 6,000 zloty [$1,650], and is travelling and has a blonde girlfriend.’ It’s a dream they sell,” said Freddy Abadia, 30, who works with NOMADA, a Wroclaw-based organisation supporting migrants.

“They don’t mention you’ll work 270 hours a month in exhausting jobs, or that many agencies never apply for your work permit.”

Abadia has firsthand experience.

In 2021, he was recruited by OESAS, a Colombian agency that promised him 4,000 zloty ($1,100) a month for a warehouse job in Poland. Instead, he earned 1,600 ($440) under harsh conditions. He reported the case to La Strada as exploitation.

The following years were turbulent. He worked other temporary jobs, pursued a master’s degree at Wroclaw University, and even spent time homeless. But his experiences and background as a social worker in Colombia have helped him better understand the systemic issues faced by migrants in Poland.

At NOMADA, he supports migrant workers and has helped to establish the Latin American Workers’ Union in collaboration with The Workers’ Initiative, a local trade union.

In August 2023, it was Abadia at the other end of the desperate call for help. Five Colombians and a Mexican woman, Flores, had just fled a chicken plant after being threatened with a gun. They had a car but nowhere to go. Some were undocumented due to their agency’s negligence.

Abadia told them to travel to Wroclaw, where NOMADA offered them a place to stay and help in finding new employment.

The demand for labour in Poland is growing. According to the Polish Institute of Economy, by 2035, the country’s workforce will shrink by 2.1 million due to demographic decline, an equivalent of 12.6 percent of the current supply.

“Poland will need migration to sustain its economy,” said the institute’s Katarzyna Debkowska. “Between 2022 and 2024 alone, the number of foreigners in the Polish labour market rose by one third.”

This reliance on migration, without adequate protections, leaves workers in precarious positions.

“Unfortunately, we cannot have the same kind of unions as in Latin America, because we are not citizens,” said Flores. “But we can still inform people, warn them about the risks, and share the truth with those who consider coming here.”

Two years after her arrival, Flores is in a better place. She has a stable job and, together with NOMADA, she has penned a migrant “survival guide” for Poland, with practical advice and information about employment rights.

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