Union leaders, mill workers want plug pulled on Polski Cukier
The Treasury Ministry got a boost last week when sugar mill workers and growers from across Poland threw their support behind the government's privatization plan for the sector.
Fearing the eminent financial collapse of mills, more than 150 union leaders, mill workers and beet growers representing all of the roughly 60 factories up for privatization converged on the Sejm last week to push for the rapid sell off of the sector.
"I appeal to the (Treasury) Minister and deputies to do everything to maximally speed up privatization," said Zygmunt Auguscik, deputy chair of the national sugar industry trade union. "We don't have any time to lose because our workers will end up on the pavement."
"We are for the rapid continuation of privatization," said Jerzy Sakwinski, chairman of the Federation of Sugar worker trade unions. "We are afraid that growers will not be paid for beets from last year's campaign."
Last week's meeting in the Sejm is just the latest episode in a controversy that has embroiled the troubled sugar sector since last summer. Some farmer trade union leaders and many Solidarity Election Action (AWS) deputies are pushing hard to keep the industry in Polish hands through the creation of one large cooperative, Polski Cukier.
Faced with debts reaching upward of zl. 2 billion ($488 million), the sugar sector would be best helped through the direct sale of mills to foreign investors, government officials have said. At the same time, foreign investors have been eager to gain a foothold in Poland, the third-largest sugar producer in Europe.
While dogged in the efforts to create the national sugar company that would group as many as 30 now independent mills, union leaders backing Polski Cukier were somber last week about the prospects.
"There is enormous resistance," said Albina Sokolik, office director of the Solidarity Independent Farmer trade union. "At one point they say there is support for a small Polski Cukier from 16 mills, but that does not mean that it will be accepted in the Sejm."
The Polski Cukier concept was dealt a blow two weeks ago when the government's economic committee stated that the current law regulating the sugar industry does not allow for the creation of a Polish-style cooperative. The government also said that it plans to follow through on its initial blueprint to privatize at least some of the sector through direct sales to foreign investors.
In a petition signed by all participants in last week's meeting in the Sejm, backers of the program of direct sales called on the government to make a "binding decision" as to the privatization of the sector. A further stalling of the process will mean that creditors looking for debt repayment will start taking over mills and will start determining the industry's future.
"With each day sugar mills are losing value," said Stanislaw Gierszewski, president of the Sugar Chamber of Commerce in Poland. "Today we don't manage our own property we are managing the property of banks and other creditors. Delays in privatization harms us all."
For its part, the Treasury Ministry said last week that the sale of the Slaska Spolka Cukrowa, the largest of Poland's four main sugar holdings, would move forward as planned. Late last month, the ministry selected French giant Saint Louis Sucre and Germany's Sudzucker as finalists to purchase upward of 51% of shares in Slaska Spolka Cukrowa. If negotiations with these companies and the holding mill workers move forward as planned, the sell off could be completed as early as April. But the absence of a new sugar law and the ongoing controversy over Polski Cukier are putting the sale of the remaining three holdings at risk, the Treasury Ministry said. According to the government's original plan, following the sale of the Slaska holding, the mills in the remaining three sugar holdings would be broken up and sold off in small groups of mills. With the fate of the sugar industry still unclear, strategic investors are in essence blocking the sale by drawing out negotiations with the government until fate of Polski Cukier is clarified.
"My personal fear is that as long as the atmosphere on the domestic market is not calm, as long as the situation concerning Polski Cukier is not resolved and as long as it is not safe to invest here, we could have problems with (foreign) investors," said Barbara Litak-Zarebska, deputy treasury minister in charge of sugar privatization.
