Pick up your feet

Local economists last week charged the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD)-led government with foot-dragging on the deep structural reforms needed to get Poland's economy going again. They are not wrong. Their call for a sweeping medium-term strategy to return the country to the fast-growth track is exactly what Poland needs. The three-month-old government, however, seems reluctant to, or incapable of, producing a plan that will reassure voters, businesses and investors that it has the courage to undertake socially unpopular decisions and turn public finances around. Strange considering that SLD knew as far back as last spring that it would return to power after four years in opposition. As Andrzej Sadowski of the Adam Smith Research Centre said in last week's Business Journal ("Sejm 2002: The government's legislative agenda"), "you would expect that the government, which six months before elections had victory in its pocket, would introduce reforms immediately after taking power." Indeed. Apart from putting together a budget that still needs to be ratified, the most serious project engineered by SLD so far has been the so-called Jerzy Hausner package of reforms to the labor code, named for the labor minister. The bills, which went into effect last week, among other thing reduced paid maternity leave to 16 weeks from 26 weeks - good news for businesses and the state budget, which until now have split the costs of this generous social benefit. While a step in the right direction, the several million złotys saved through Hausner's efforts in this area are a few drops in the bucket compared to the kind of public-finance reform Poland needs. A bolder move would be to slash the number of sick days permissible under o praca contracts from 30 days to less than 10. To essentially sanction an extra month's vacation for every worker employed in the country hits businesses hard - state-run companies certainly, but it's the small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that suffer most from this oft-abused, anti-business benefit. SMEs, the backbone of the economy and employing some two-thirds of the nation's workers, are hamstrung by the law, which forces them to pay people for not working instead of reinvesting that cash in their businesses. Reinvestment means more growth, more jobs and less unemployment. Labor law is just one area that needs to be revamped. What about the others? During last year's election campaign, SLD boasted about having drawers full of draft bills just waiting to be signed, but where are those bills now? As we've said before in this space, the longer the government fails to fight its economic battle on a number of fronts - simultaneously - the further consumer and investor confidence will erode and the longer Poland will drift before reaching its potential. What's it going to be, SLD?