Industrial action threatens to boil over in PKN Orlen

The unions are threatening strike action, but no concrete date has yet been decided upon. "At the moment we are still ready to negotiate with the board," said Walenty Cywiński, the leader of the NSZZ Solidarity union in Grupa Orlen. The unions demand that the board respects the agreements it signed in 1999 and 2000 concerning the principles of the functioning of the regional units, and that the company suspends the designation of staff as part of reorganization of the concern's structures. Last Tuesday, PKN Orlen's deputy president Wojciech Heydel announced that the management board is determined to fully implement the restructuring program and has no plans of withdrawing from it. On June 29 Orlen's management board is going to make decisions concerning the distribution of the company's 2004 profit and the changes in the status of the firm. If the changes are accepted, the position of the Treasury in the company will be weakened. (Parkiet, May 28-29, p. 5) A.F.