President asks labor unions to help fight unemployment

During a summit of center-left leaders in Stockholm, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski appealed to Poland's trade unions to take up an active battle to reduce the current 18% unemployment rate. Kwasniewski asked the trade unions to "open up to new proposals in the area of fighting unemployment, because it is not enough to be a trade union for working people, but also for those who are without work." According to Kwasniewski there is little chance to decrease such large unemployment rates if trade unions continue to block labor code changes and focus solely on the rights of the employed. In his opinion growing unemployment is caused by the economic slowdown and a current peak in the available labor pool. (Rzeczpospolita, p. A4; Reuters) M.T.K.