Shipyard shenanigans
The Industry Ministry is looking at ways to deal with the dilemma, including trying to get World Bank technical assistance to support consultants' studies of options on the shipyard. The World Bank, which mostly wants to stay out of the political debate about the economics of shipyards, isn't sure it wants to sign off on an Industry-solicited study.
And, of course, this could be even more of a political hot potato since former President Lech Walesa returned to his Gdansk shipyard electrician's job this month. But Walesa is a mixed bag, as a magnet for worker-protests today even in his old stomping ground. It's probably significant that reporters outnumbered real folks by a large margin when Walesa returned to the shipyard briefly April 2, the deadline to claim his old job.
If all shipyard workers were faring badly, that would be one thing but since workers not only at Szczecin but at the nearby Gdynia shipyard are making better-than-average industrial wages, after the top-to-bottom shipyard restructuring, it's harder to make the case.
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Look for legislative moves forward on pension reform, with this time the Parliament, rather than the government, coming up with initiatives that would go substantially further than the fine-tuning and tinkering with the existing pay-as-you-go system.
When World Bank vice president Johannes Linn was here in late March, he spent 90 minutes with parliamentarians on pension options. One result: a quickly planned mini-conference on pension reform options next Friday to continue the debate, says Paul Knotter, the bank's representative.
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Among the reasons behind the musical chairs in state-owned television: a sense that surely the government TV chiefs ought to be doing something to keep the private PolSat network from grabbing so much of the audience share - and ad revenues. So will the TV chiefs scrub classical theater and music and opt for Westerns and sitcoms as PolSat has done so successfully?
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News from NIFs: There are dramatically differing views on how to deal with what Western investment bankers think are excessive demands from supervisory board members or company presidents.
One view is to accommodate them. As one fund advisor said, "If in order to carry out their new responsibilities they need to have mobile telephones, or BMWs, or 'working' meetings at resorts, bite the bullet and give it to them. Once the NIFs go public, a new board will be elected - and the public will own the shares, with managers holding 15%." In other words, avoid warfare today, think long-term and "transparency."
Other NIF insiders think that's plumb stupid. They're expecting the parliamentary policemen from NIK on their doorsteps, watching to see what's not done - or what is done, in excess. "There are people who want to bring this program down and a rash of buying cellular phones unnecessarily plays into their hands," one advisor said
"Some fund managers are paying their Polish staff off-shore salaries (i.e., high wages, protected from ZUS or taxes). They're nuts. Once they get blown out of the water, it hurts all of us."
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Short takes: Price Waterhouse's international chairman Don Tarantino did a quick blitz of Warsaw clients, current and potential, last week. ... That was Tom Dine, the Central European chief for the Agency for International Development, jogging around Warsaw last weekend. Literally.
And, of course, this could be even more of a political hot potato since former President Lech Walesa returned to his Gdansk shipyard electrician's job this month. But Walesa is a mixed bag, as a magnet for worker-protests today even in his old stomping ground. It's probably significant that reporters outnumbered real folks by a large margin when Walesa returned to the shipyard briefly April 2, the deadline to claim his old job.
If all shipyard workers were faring badly, that would be one thing but since workers not only at Szczecin but at the nearby Gdynia shipyard are making better-than-average industrial wages, after the top-to-bottom shipyard restructuring, it's harder to make the case.
* * * *
Look for legislative moves forward on pension reform, with this time the Parliament, rather than the government, coming up with initiatives that would go substantially further than the fine-tuning and tinkering with the existing pay-as-you-go system.
When World Bank vice president Johannes Linn was here in late March, he spent 90 minutes with parliamentarians on pension options. One result: a quickly planned mini-conference on pension reform options next Friday to continue the debate, says Paul Knotter, the bank's representative.
* * * *
Among the reasons behind the musical chairs in state-owned television: a sense that surely the government TV chiefs ought to be doing something to keep the private PolSat network from grabbing so much of the audience share - and ad revenues. So will the TV chiefs scrub classical theater and music and opt for Westerns and sitcoms as PolSat has done so successfully?
* * * *
News from NIFs: There are dramatically differing views on how to deal with what Western investment bankers think are excessive demands from supervisory board members or company presidents.
One view is to accommodate them. As one fund advisor said, "If in order to carry out their new responsibilities they need to have mobile telephones, or BMWs, or 'working' meetings at resorts, bite the bullet and give it to them. Once the NIFs go public, a new board will be elected - and the public will own the shares, with managers holding 15%." In other words, avoid warfare today, think long-term and "transparency."
Other NIF insiders think that's plumb stupid. They're expecting the parliamentary policemen from NIK on their doorsteps, watching to see what's not done - or what is done, in excess. "There are people who want to bring this program down and a rash of buying cellular phones unnecessarily plays into their hands," one advisor said
"Some fund managers are paying their Polish staff off-shore salaries (i.e., high wages, protected from ZUS or taxes). They're nuts. Once they get blown out of the water, it hurts all of us."
* * * *
Short takes: Price Waterhouse's international chairman Don Tarantino did a quick blitz of Warsaw clients, current and potential, last week. ... That was Tom Dine, the Central European chief for the Agency for International Development, jogging around Warsaw last weekend. Literally.
