History of trade unions in Poland
The history of Polish trade unions goes back to 1869.
The first one hundred and twenty years from 1869 to 1989
As in all Central European countries, there have been active trade unions in Poland since the end of the 19th century , especially in the Prussian and Habsburg partition areas at that time . In 1869 the first trade union for mechanical engineers and metal workers was established in Bromberg. In 1889 the first general "Mutual Aid Union" ( Związek Wzajemnej Pomocy ) was founded in Bytom , Silesia . Some of the historical unions navigated all system changes, such as the largest single union in the country today, the Związek Nauczycielstwa Polskiego teachers' association founded in 1905 . By 1906 there were already over 2,000 trade unions in around 30 central associations. Most of the time, the trade union movement was ideologically fragmented.
After the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, all socio-political organizations, including the trade unions, were banned by the German occupiers. Many activists were deported to concentration camps and murdered, others died in the resistance.
After 1945 the communist system switched all re-established unions on an equal footing. The permanent establishment union became the constitutive element of the union organizations, also to prevent solidarity in combines and regions. The attempt was made to turn it into an instrument of the “ Polish United Workers' Party ” (PZPR).
On the other hand, there was repeated violent resistance from the working people in the industrial centers, for example in Posen in 1956 , on the Baltic coast in 1970 , in Radom and Ursus in June 1976 and at the Lenin shipyard in Danzig in 1980 . The founding of the "Independent, self-governing Solidarity Union" (NSZZ Solidarność ) resulting from this in September 1980, also as a political mass organization with up to ten million members, led in autumn 1980 to the self-dissolution of the party-dependent "Central Council of Trade Unions" ( Centralna Rada Związków Zawodowych - CRZZ) .
During martial law from December 13, 1981 to July 1983 , Solidarność was banned and the controlled rebuilding of state-dependent trade unions was initiated. Branch unions were created out of the factories, and in 1984 an “All-Poland Trade Union Federation” ( Ogólnopolskie Porozumienie Związków Zawodowych ) was set up as an umbrella organization to coordinate them . The entire union assets not only of the former CRZZ, but also of the banned Solidarność were transferred to him.
Development of trade unions and membership after 1989
The OPZZ remained the strongest trade union confederation after the fall of 1989, but like all other unions recorded a dramatic decline in membership. In the mid-1990s 4.5 million people were still organized at the OPZZ, but in 2001 the number of members fell to less than two million and in 2007 it is estimated at 750,000. The new trade union federation Forum Związków Zawodowych (FZZ) split off from the OPZZ at the beginning of 2002, organizing 420,000 members mainly in public services, local government, the railways and state-owned companies.
NSZZ Solidarność had ten million members in autumn 1981. After its re-legalization in April 1989, it was unable to regain its original importance and membership. In 2001 about 1.1 million were counted, in December 2005 there were only 721,856 members. There are drastic differences between public companies and services, where 28% of employees are organized, and the private sector, where only 3% are organized. Between 1982 and 2005 the union density fell from around 80% to below 14%. This downright dramatic decline has made Poland one of the countries in the EU with the lowest union density. The majority of union members (51.7%) are women: especially in education, health and public services. 35% of the members of the mining unions are women. Only 2.4% of employees under 25 are members of trade unions.
The main reasons for the rapid downward trend are:
- Massive shrinkage of traditional industries and areas.
- In privatized companies with over 250 employees, trade unions continue to exist in most cases, in medium-sized companies in around a third. There are virtually no trade unionists in small businesses.
- Private start-ups: in large companies only 5% of companies with Polish and 33% of companies with foreign capital are unionized, in medium-sized and small companies there are almost no unions.
- Technology-oriented companies, for example in the IT sector, with their young, often academically educated workforce, tend to be far from unions.
- Because of the high unemployment rate of 30% in certain regions and a national average of 13% (as of May 2007), many workers are afraid to venture into a trade union organization.
The role of the trade unions in Polish politics after the system change
Solidarność was a trade union and a political movement at the same time from the beginning. From this milieu political groups and parties were continuously founded. A total of 23 parties saw their roots and their leaders connected to Solidarność, including today's largest ruling party “ Law and Justice ” (PiS) and the largest opposition party “ Platforma Obywatelska ” (PO). Although the formerly close ties between the political parties and the trade unions weakened after 2000, the lines of relationship that were visible early on have persisted. Solidarność sympathizes with the conservative parties of the national, Catholic right, the OPZZ traditionally tends towards alliances with the post-communist left.
The state unions were highly politicized throughout the transformation period. The first Solidarność chairman, Lech Wałęsa , was elected president in 1990, and many other trade unionists also held government offices, seats in parliament and boards of large state companies. Solidarność thus secured great influence, but it lost most of its leadership cadre to politics. This weakened their union competence and removed them from their members.
In the 1997 parliamentary elections , the electoral alliance AWS , which was grouped around Solidarność , consisted of Solidarność, 20 mini-parties and 16 other groups. With just under 34% of the valid votes, the AWS became by far the largest party and thus won 201 seats in the Sejm (out of 460) and 51 seats in the Senate (out of 100), which gave an absolute majority in the Polish Second Chamber. With Jerzy Buzek, the union provided the prime minister and the majority of the ministerial posts occupied by the AWS. The union chairman Marian Krzaklewski (February 1991 to September 2002) was also chairman of the AWS and his group in the Sejm. Its most important employees came from the union's national commission and took part in negotiations even in cases where they did not have a parliamentary mandate. The union, party and parliamentary group chairman Krzaklewski and the members of the State Commission of Solidarność thus formed an extra-parliamentary center of influence.
The "union rule" ended in 2001. Weakened by internal disputes and allegations of corruption, the AWS failed to meet the threshold of 8% required for electoral coalitions in the 2001 Sejm elections and has not been represented in parliament with a member of its own since then. It was now governed by a left-wing alliance led by the “ Federation of Democratic Left ” (SLD) with a high proportion of OPZZ cadres as members of parliament. In 2005 the Solidarność- related party “ Law and Justice ” (PiS) and its partners replaced the OPZZ-related left-wing alliance, which, however, continued to include seven MPs from the OPZZ after 2005.
The impoverishment of certain sections of the population, layoffs and rising unemployment associated with the reform policy of the 1990s were attributed not only to the government but also to the trade union. The experiences of direct involvement in Polish politics were therefore thoroughly negative. As a result of their co-government, the trade unions have lost a lot of respect and support. Nevertheless, to this day, a large number of the functionaries and members believe that only with their own people in politics can something work in their favor. The PiS party is openly favored by the Solidarność union. In the election campaign for the 2005 presidential elections, Solidarność called on the population to vote for the PiS candidate Lech Kaczyński . The trade union weekly “ Tygodnik Solidarność ” supports the policy of the PiS, which ruled from 2005 to 2007 in coalition with the farmers' party Samoobrona (self-defense) and the League of Polish Families (LPR).
Even the FZZ, which is emphatically non-partisan, almost slipped into party affiliation. In June 2005 the main board of the FZZ decided to sign an agreement with the populist Samoobrona. However, the document was terminated by the FZZ in August 2005 because Samoobrona did not provide the union federation with the agreed list places for parliamentary elections.
On the current situation of the Polish trade unions
Poland's trade union landscape is shaped by the three national umbrella organizations, many autonomous organizations at regional level (e.g. " Sierpień 80 " and Solidarność 80 ) as well as independent trade unions in individual companies. All Polish trade union confederations recognize the social market economy, parliamentary democracy and European unification.
All trade unions, including NSZZ Solidarność, brought their familiar old structures into the new functions and tasks in the period of transformation after 1989. Despite numerous attempts at reform, all umbrella associations and industry organizations are still suffering from these structures, which do not meet the current challenges, but have become so entrenched that radical changes can hardly be implemented in the medium term. Structural reform became a magic formula that appears in many variations at all congresses and in the programmatic documents, but from which no major changes result in practice. Although they advocate political reform, they are conservative and reform-resistant about their own organizational structures and finances. The branch organizations often reflect the Polish state economic structures of the early 1980s, but not the realities of today's globalized market economy. The regional structures also often do not follow the state reforms that have taken place in the meantime.
NSZZ “Solidarność”, founded in 1980 and 1989, consists of 37 regions and 16 branch unions. The OPZZ, founded in 1984 with around 90 trade unions in 12 branches as well as 16 regional voivodship councils, has been chaired by Jan Guz since May 2004. The FZZ Forum, founded in 2002 with 77 trade unions in 8 branches, is led by Tadeusz Chwałka .
The Catholic Church and the veneration of the Pope particularly shape the work of NSZZ Solidarność. At the 20th National Congress of Solidarność in the summer of 2006, a long appeal to commemorate Pope John Paul II was typically adopted. During the first visit of Pope Benedict XVI. Strikes across the country by health care workers and in other industries were interrupted in order not to disrupt the high attendance and to enable Solidarność members to take part in the papal masses. NSZZ Solidarność, OPZZ and FZZ together have around 1.9 million members. A further 300,000 people are said to be members of the smaller, unbound trade unions. Statistics are only rarely collected, which is extremely difficult anyway because of the high degree of fragmentation and insufficient networking.
The basic unions are predominantly "permanent establishment social associations" or even "functional groups" each for administration, sales, logistics, foremen, technicians, etc. Sometimes these "permanent establishment social associations" only operate in their narrowest department and know little about union work at other locations Company. Corporate and group work in trade union networks only takes place in individual cases and then with foreign, often German, support.
The degree of organization is still high in the mining, metallurgical and educational sectors. All state mines are unionized. In addition to the two large miners' unions Solidarność and OPZZ, there are interest groups representing individual professional groups and a number of other small organizations. The degree of organization is between 70% and 90% depending on the mine. In 97% of the country's companies, however, there are no unions, especially not in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In the company segment, on the other hand, in which there are employee organizations at all, there are over 23,000 trade unions with their own legal personality and over 300 supra-company organizations that also want to be regarded as national trade union confederations. All are duly registered with the courts. There are no individual memberships in trade unions or state associations.
The fragmentation is due to a law that sets only low numerical limits for the establishment of workers' organizations. 10 employees are enough to register a union formation committee. Companies with more than five to over a dozen unions are not uncommon. The record of the splinter groups is held by a company with 210 employees and 17 unions. The unions cooperate within some companies. But there are also cases where they are at odds and conclude collective agreements with the employer behind the backs of the competing unions. Many company unions at Solidarność do not belong to any branch or specialist trade union, but only to the state federation.
In general, trade unions, if they exist, are strongest at the company level, where membership fees are collected and, for the most part, also spent. Solidarność's finances are the most transparent. The membership fees are distributed as follows: 60% is kept by the works commission, 25% by the regional board, 8% by the national commission (umbrella organization), 5% by the strike fund and 2% by the branch office. OPZZ and FZZ Forum have major problems with financing their activities. In both cases, the fees of 7 cents per member and month are paid to the headquarters. This is far too little to maintain the work of the umbrella organizations at a high level. In recent years, Solidarność and OPZZ in particular have been forced to make huge savings through office closings and downsizing. Of the two unions mentioned, OPZZ seems to be in a materially better position because it had taken over the greater part of the old union assets (inner-city real estate, sanatoriums and rest homes) and was able to entertain itself for years mainly with income from renting and leasing. Similar sources of funding have some branch unions from OPZZ and Forum, which have their own assets. So far, there has been limited cooperation between trade unions and civil society organizations. Conservative trade unions are generally cautious to suspicious of consumer and environmental organizations that pursue different goals and sometimes represent conflicting interests.
Polish trade unions, too, are often unable to react in good time to new challenges. Other non-governmental organizations regularly get ahead of them. Some topics of today's labor market, such as gender issues , bullying , protection of the interests of employees harmed by the large retail chains, temporary work, agency work have initially become topics of public debate thanks to civil society, the media and ad hoc socio-political associations, often with extensive initial reluctance on the part of the public of the unions.
Employee councils were only introduced with the law of April 7, 2006. This implements the directive of the European Union on information and consultation rights of employees of March 11, 2002. The employee councils, however, have no co-determination rights on decisions made by company management. Where there are no unions, the workers' councils can be a preliminary stage in establishing a union organization.
The international ties of the Polish trade unions
The NSZZ Solidarność has belonged to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in Brussels (ICFTU, since November 2006 IGB) and to the World Association of Workers (WVA, merged into the IGB since November 2006), since 1995 to the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and since 1997 to Trade Union Advisory Committee of the "Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development" (TUAC / OECD). As a rule, the branch unions of NSZZ Solidarność belong to the branch secretariats of the ETUC.
The OPZZ belonged to the Communist World Trade Union Confederation (WGB) in Prague from 1984 to 1991 and only had observer status there from 1991 to 1997. In March 2006, he joined the European Trade Union Confederation after resolving a year-long dispute over real estate with Solidarność. The largest trade union in the country, the OPZZ member ZNP, belonged to the teacher federations of both the ICFTU and the WVA. Many of the other branch unions of OPZZ have also long belonged to the branch structures of the ETUC and the ITUC. These include printers, construction, forestry, agriculture, mining, chemicals and energy.
The FZZ had been a member of the European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (Civil Service Association CESI ) since September 2003 . She was excluded because she no longer paid her membership fees.
literature
- Rainer Deppe and Melanie Tatur: Reconstitution and Marginalization: Transformation Processes and Trade Unions in Hungary and Poland . Frankfurt / M. 2002, ISBN 3-593-37009-3 .
- Juliusz Gardawski: Trade unions 2001 facing new challenges . Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Warsaw 2001.
- Peter Hengstenberg and Clemens Rode (eds.): The Social Report Poland 2005 . Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Warsaw 2005, ISBN 83-86088-75-3 , PDF file .
- Heribert Kohl and Hans-Wolfgang Platzer: Labor Relations in Central Eastern Europe: Transformation and Integration: The eight new EU member states in comparison . 2nd edition, Baden-Baden 2004, ISBN 3-8329-0695-9 .
- Hartmut Kühn: The Solidarność Decade: The Political History of Poland 1980-1990 . Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-86163-087-7 .
- Albrecht Riechers: Help for Solidarność: Examples of civil society and the state from the Federal Republic of Germany in the years 1980-1982 . Bonn 2006, ISBN 3-89892-509-9 , PDF file .
- Klaus Reiff: Poland: As a German diplomat on the Vistula . Bonn 1990, ISBN 3-8012-0151-1 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Annual report for the 20th National Congress of NSZZ Solidarność, September 28-30, 2006, p. 33
- ↑ Public Opinion Research Center CBOS, Polish Public Opinion, 11/2006, p. 4
- ↑ a b Juliusz Gardawski, Declining trade union density examined, "Foundation Institute of Public Affairs", Warsaw 2002, published in the "Eiro-Portal" (European Industrial Relations Observatory on-line)