In recent years, the outsourcing of a variety of different activities has been more commonly observed in the coal mining industry. This is connected with employing workers by external companies. These practices are not necessarily perceived as good ones by mines’ employees because they may influence their remuneration directly or indirectly. Firstly, as external employees treat work in mining company as a source of a quick income. Therefore, external companies often calculate their employees compensation not based on working time (i.e. hours) but on the basis of a specific, accomplished task. Such employment is called piecework, whereas the workers employed in this kind of system are called output workers/piece workers. Therefore, to receive higher wages in these companies, employees carry out their tasks faster and more efficiently. This, in turn, can affect the standards of workers employed by the mining company. In addition, outsourced workers are often retired miners, so the costs incurred by employers are significantly lower. In addition, in order to not to lose the retirement benefit, they work for a much lower rate. On the other hand, outsourced work can be done in a hurry (on a piece rate), which is not conducive to compliance with safety regulations, therefore mine employees may feel unsafe. This article aims to present how mine employees assess outsourcing underground works. In order to achieve this aim, a survey was carried out among employees of one of the coal mine companies in Silesia. Participants of the survey were randomly chosen among underground miners employed at one mine company. The survey was anonymous which obviously might have influenced respondents’ honesty in answering. The survey was carried out in several mines of the chosen company. In some of them the survey was carried out online and in the remaining ones it was filled out on paper. Analyzing the survey results allowed for a better understanding of the reasons of the disapproval of outsourcing underground works. This, in turn, may be used for better human resources management including, in particular, planning an incentive based pay system.

The level of sales of a given good depends largely on the distribution network. An analysis of the distribution network allows companies to optimize business activity, which improves the efficiency and profitability of a company’s sales with an immediate effect on profit growth. The so-called spatial analysis is highly useful in this regard. The paper presents an analysis of the network of authorized dealers of the Polish Mining Group for the Opolskie Province. The analysis was done using GIS (SIP) tools. The purpose of the analysis was to present tools that could be used to verify an existing distribution network, to optimize it, or to create a new sales outlet. The prresented tools belong to GIS operations used to process data stored in Spatial Information System resources. These are so-called geoprocessing tools. The article contains several spatial analyses, which results in choosing the optimum location of the distribution point in terms of the defined criteria. The used tools include a spatial intersection and sum. Geocoding and the so-called cartodiagram were also used. The presented analysis can be performed for both the network of authorized retailers within a region, a city or an entire country. The presented tools provide the opportunity to specify the target consumers, areas where they are located and areas of potential consumer concentration. This allows the points of sale in areas with a high probability of finding new customers to be located, which enables the optimal location to be chosen, for example, in terms of access to roads, rail transport, locations of the right area and neighborhood. Spatial analysis tools will also enable the coal company to verify its already existing distribution network.