Union strikes at heart of labor question
The root of the dilemma is passing the buck on deciding how to deal with such heavily indebted enterprises as Ursus, and many private businesses are very concerned about the distance the government will go in granting tax reductions and other special privileges.
"A number are very angry about special privileges not available to the private sector," says Witold Michalek, director of Business Centre Club. "They are angry the unions are pressing so hard that the government may go farther."
And the private sector will have to pick up the bill, he added.
Private sector
Plenty of industrial dinosaurs have been rescued during this transition - when there is a clear-cut market that will make formidable outside investments pay off with export sales or with sales in the domestic market.
The Polkolor television plant bought by the French company Thomson was basically state of the art - circa 1970s, with only minimal maintenance or infrastructure upgrading since then.
International Paper found similar disrepair when it took over an existing paper operation and put more than $250 million into its new plant at Kwidzyn. In both cases, after major retrofitting and new technology, these companies are major exporters. The same profile is expected to be true of the more recent British investment in the huge glass factory in Sandomierz.
But there are no foreign angels to do a turnaround of the dilapidated Ursus plant. There is a worldwide glut of tractors, and Ursus workers, while successfully helping to improve productivity, are hard put to overcome those market realities.
Passing the squeaky wheel
The government has said that it was ready to postpone some debts when the strike began but no deal was signed by press time. As workers do what they can to write off loan and tax debts and to get low-interest loans for restructuring, the "squeaky wheel" principle may apply here more than other market economies. Strikes bring action - of one sort or another - and have great potential to roil the political waters, whether or not the strikers' demands are supported by other workers or by people in general.
Most of the issues for Ursus have been on the table for five years. When the first Solidarity reformers discovered the extent of the industrial decay, priorities had to be set and choices made. Instead, there has been more of a holding action, with one government passing the buck to the next - not just at Ursus, but at other major trouble spots: in steel plants, at electric utilities and in the coal mines.
The post-communist government, with OPZZ union becoming a good-soldier follower rather than an independent force, has few strategies either, the Ursus strike reveals. And the SLD is vulnerable to special-pleading for debt-writeoffs by Ursus workers because some other power-sector workers got this earlier.
"If you make exceptions, everybody wants to be part of that," says Leslaw Paga, head of accounting firm Deloitte & Touche and former chair of the Securities Commission.
No road maps
A former Solidarity activist, Paga found it strange that the Ursus director - who was elevated from the ranks of the Solidarity union in 1992 - claims he is not involved in the strike demands. "He's representing the owner - the state - so how can he say he's not involved? What is he doing, then?"
But Paga said there are no obvious road maps as to what should happen next, especially since many Western European countries subsidize loss-making industries even when the "market" might dictate otherwise.
"The question is still a lack of strategy and, unfortunately, the 'Strategy for Poland' does not mention this," said Paga in a reference to Finance Minister Grzegorz Kolodko's ostensibly all-encompassing economic blueprint for the future.
Handling the Ursus strikes is a delicate issue, both for the SLD government and for the opposition parties vying in the presidential campaign now taking shape. Solidarity Union has no love for the SLD government - but some critics think that Kolodko's "no work, no talks" stance exacerbates the problem.
"I think the prime minister is talking out of both sides of his mouth and certainly the minister of finance was foolish and arrogant in saying he doesn't talk to strikers," says Kazimiera Sperling, who heads an agricultural restructuring foundation. "The government should be the mediator and not shake their fingers at (the strikers)."
Delegates to the Solidarity Union's national conference in early June will take up the issue of a general strike, and will assess feedback available by then about the Ursus strike and the echo-impact in scattered other sites.
The Ursus strikers have claimed to voice the protests of many beyond their own ranks in their charges that workers are getting poorer while the "pink and red oligarchies" are enriching themselves.
Shop talk
Opinion polls have shown a sharp spike upward of apprehension about future job losses, starting in January compared to a year ago, but there also are sharply rising negatives for both the Solidarity and OPZZ unions. This makes it hard to know who would follow a general strike call, even within the union ranks, let alone in the general population.
Many other Solidarity members face their own set of challenges. At the FSO plant in Warsaw, for instance, where there are four unions, productivity is far lower than at the newer General Motors plant, where there are no unions. A probable step-up of GM investments in FSO could mean major plant-floor staffing changes.
At the FSO Solidarity office, union Secretary Jerzy Makuch says there has been little shop-floor talk about the Ursus strike. The union office keeps tabs on what's happening at Ursus "but we aren't really taking into account the possibility of joining them in a strike."
An FSO assembly-line foreman, a 20-year veteran, put it more succinctly. "I don't think too many people give it much thought. I suppose there should be some kind of support for them. They've got it rough and so do we. But for a lot of people working here, this is their only living and they don't want to give it up."
Under today's labor regulations, sympathy strikes would cost workers a day's pay and, unlike in the past, these penalties could stick rather than be forgiven as has been the case of coal mine wildcat strikes which others joined in temporarily.
Strategy vacuum
Another issue rarely debated publicly, by either Solidarity or OPZZ, is the lack of nuts and bolts organizing for new members.
The only unions in the private sector are those wrapped into new structures during privatization of state-owned enterprises and many one-time union members quit even then. There appear to be no strategies for finding new ways to get and keep members, now that there is no artificial stimulant such as the topple-communism fervor which propelled more than 10 million dissidents into the ranks of Solidarity during the early 1980s and ultimately led to the collapse of the last socialist government and the formation of the first Solidarity government in mid-1989.
The final uncertainty, for Solidarity strikers and their union colleagues as well as for the SLD ministers, is how all this plays out in the presidential campaign.
President Lech Walesa has no organized backing for a potential reelection bid and probably won't get much comfort from his onetime Solidarity brethren. The union itself is in a quandary over whether to endorse anyone, with their members split across the political spectrum, including some who would back the current SLD government and its presidential nominee, Aleksander Kwasniewski.
The muddled political picture makes resolving - or perhaps even containing - an Ursus labor protest more complicated. It could be a long hot summer.
Solidarity and unions: What the people say today
"There's no coincidence that the strikes are organized just before the presidential elections. They are for eliciting and stressing people's dissatisfaction" - Andrzej Miklas, 32, lawyer.
"Strikes are justified but only in extreme situations; they can't be like blackmailing" - Piotr Ksiezek, 26, tax adviser.
"Solidarity has degenerated; before is was valuable, now everybody thinks how to bake his own goose (make money)" - Bogna Gepner, 84, retired, never in union, pensioner zl. 499/month.
"Solidarity's time is passed, they meant something when they were opposing the communist government, but they've played their role." - Michal Woeniewski, 49, scientist, never in union, zl. 1,900/month.
"Ursus was a thoughtless investment from the start. It is a national symbol which has been wasted in the same way as Stocznia Gdanska" - Andrzej Raczynski, 27, administrator in private drug wholesale firm, never in union.
"Solidarity struggled to free teachers who were imprisoned during the martial law; OPZZ did nothing at the time. Thanks to Solidarity there's religion at schools now" - Malgorzata Tar, 51, English teacher, Solidarity member since 1980.
"I have always been a supporter of this movement. This is the biggest organization in Poland that defends the rights of workers" - Stanislaw Karczmarek, 30, Solidarity member, maintenance technician.
"When we got freedom, they (Solidarity members) were together, now they are divided. It's not Solidarity. They are different" - Jan Prajss, 84, veteran combatant.
"Ordinary people are not interested, they are too busy with their own matters" - Lidia Kwater, 26, college student.
"If the Russians were to come back or if the communists were to take over and threaten our independence, I think the people would start thinking about Poland again. But now they are not" -Agata, 35, account executive.
"I don't know what they want at Ursus. If they cannot work and make the factory work, then they should find jobs someplace else" - Kasia, 21, economics student.
"A number are very angry about special privileges not available to the private sector," says Witold Michalek, director of Business Centre Club. "They are angry the unions are pressing so hard that the government may go farther."
And the private sector will have to pick up the bill, he added.
Private sector
Plenty of industrial dinosaurs have been rescued during this transition - when there is a clear-cut market that will make formidable outside investments pay off with export sales or with sales in the domestic market.
The Polkolor television plant bought by the French company Thomson was basically state of the art - circa 1970s, with only minimal maintenance or infrastructure upgrading since then.
International Paper found similar disrepair when it took over an existing paper operation and put more than $250 million into its new plant at Kwidzyn. In both cases, after major retrofitting and new technology, these companies are major exporters. The same profile is expected to be true of the more recent British investment in the huge glass factory in Sandomierz.
But there are no foreign angels to do a turnaround of the dilapidated Ursus plant. There is a worldwide glut of tractors, and Ursus workers, while successfully helping to improve productivity, are hard put to overcome those market realities.
Passing the squeaky wheel
The government has said that it was ready to postpone some debts when the strike began but no deal was signed by press time. As workers do what they can to write off loan and tax debts and to get low-interest loans for restructuring, the "squeaky wheel" principle may apply here more than other market economies. Strikes bring action - of one sort or another - and have great potential to roil the political waters, whether or not the strikers' demands are supported by other workers or by people in general.
Most of the issues for Ursus have been on the table for five years. When the first Solidarity reformers discovered the extent of the industrial decay, priorities had to be set and choices made. Instead, there has been more of a holding action, with one government passing the buck to the next - not just at Ursus, but at other major trouble spots: in steel plants, at electric utilities and in the coal mines.
The post-communist government, with OPZZ union becoming a good-soldier follower rather than an independent force, has few strategies either, the Ursus strike reveals. And the SLD is vulnerable to special-pleading for debt-writeoffs by Ursus workers because some other power-sector workers got this earlier.
"If you make exceptions, everybody wants to be part of that," says Leslaw Paga, head of accounting firm Deloitte & Touche and former chair of the Securities Commission.
No road maps
A former Solidarity activist, Paga found it strange that the Ursus director - who was elevated from the ranks of the Solidarity union in 1992 - claims he is not involved in the strike demands. "He's representing the owner - the state - so how can he say he's not involved? What is he doing, then?"
But Paga said there are no obvious road maps as to what should happen next, especially since many Western European countries subsidize loss-making industries even when the "market" might dictate otherwise.
"The question is still a lack of strategy and, unfortunately, the 'Strategy for Poland' does not mention this," said Paga in a reference to Finance Minister Grzegorz Kolodko's ostensibly all-encompassing economic blueprint for the future.
Handling the Ursus strikes is a delicate issue, both for the SLD government and for the opposition parties vying in the presidential campaign now taking shape. Solidarity Union has no love for the SLD government - but some critics think that Kolodko's "no work, no talks" stance exacerbates the problem.
"I think the prime minister is talking out of both sides of his mouth and certainly the minister of finance was foolish and arrogant in saying he doesn't talk to strikers," says Kazimiera Sperling, who heads an agricultural restructuring foundation. "The government should be the mediator and not shake their fingers at (the strikers)."
Delegates to the Solidarity Union's national conference in early June will take up the issue of a general strike, and will assess feedback available by then about the Ursus strike and the echo-impact in scattered other sites.
The Ursus strikers have claimed to voice the protests of many beyond their own ranks in their charges that workers are getting poorer while the "pink and red oligarchies" are enriching themselves.
Shop talk
Opinion polls have shown a sharp spike upward of apprehension about future job losses, starting in January compared to a year ago, but there also are sharply rising negatives for both the Solidarity and OPZZ unions. This makes it hard to know who would follow a general strike call, even within the union ranks, let alone in the general population.
Many other Solidarity members face their own set of challenges. At the FSO plant in Warsaw, for instance, where there are four unions, productivity is far lower than at the newer General Motors plant, where there are no unions. A probable step-up of GM investments in FSO could mean major plant-floor staffing changes.
At the FSO Solidarity office, union Secretary Jerzy Makuch says there has been little shop-floor talk about the Ursus strike. The union office keeps tabs on what's happening at Ursus "but we aren't really taking into account the possibility of joining them in a strike."
An FSO assembly-line foreman, a 20-year veteran, put it more succinctly. "I don't think too many people give it much thought. I suppose there should be some kind of support for them. They've got it rough and so do we. But for a lot of people working here, this is their only living and they don't want to give it up."
Under today's labor regulations, sympathy strikes would cost workers a day's pay and, unlike in the past, these penalties could stick rather than be forgiven as has been the case of coal mine wildcat strikes which others joined in temporarily.
Strategy vacuum
Another issue rarely debated publicly, by either Solidarity or OPZZ, is the lack of nuts and bolts organizing for new members.
The only unions in the private sector are those wrapped into new structures during privatization of state-owned enterprises and many one-time union members quit even then. There appear to be no strategies for finding new ways to get and keep members, now that there is no artificial stimulant such as the topple-communism fervor which propelled more than 10 million dissidents into the ranks of Solidarity during the early 1980s and ultimately led to the collapse of the last socialist government and the formation of the first Solidarity government in mid-1989.
The final uncertainty, for Solidarity strikers and their union colleagues as well as for the SLD ministers, is how all this plays out in the presidential campaign.
President Lech Walesa has no organized backing for a potential reelection bid and probably won't get much comfort from his onetime Solidarity brethren. The union itself is in a quandary over whether to endorse anyone, with their members split across the political spectrum, including some who would back the current SLD government and its presidential nominee, Aleksander Kwasniewski.
The muddled political picture makes resolving - or perhaps even containing - an Ursus labor protest more complicated. It could be a long hot summer.
Solidarity and unions: What the people say today
"There's no coincidence that the strikes are organized just before the presidential elections. They are for eliciting and stressing people's dissatisfaction" - Andrzej Miklas, 32, lawyer.
"Strikes are justified but only in extreme situations; they can't be like blackmailing" - Piotr Ksiezek, 26, tax adviser.
"Solidarity has degenerated; before is was valuable, now everybody thinks how to bake his own goose (make money)" - Bogna Gepner, 84, retired, never in union, pensioner zl. 499/month.
"Solidarity's time is passed, they meant something when they were opposing the communist government, but they've played their role." - Michal Woeniewski, 49, scientist, never in union, zl. 1,900/month.
"Ursus was a thoughtless investment from the start. It is a national symbol which has been wasted in the same way as Stocznia Gdanska" - Andrzej Raczynski, 27, administrator in private drug wholesale firm, never in union.
"Solidarity struggled to free teachers who were imprisoned during the martial law; OPZZ did nothing at the time. Thanks to Solidarity there's religion at schools now" - Malgorzata Tar, 51, English teacher, Solidarity member since 1980.
"I have always been a supporter of this movement. This is the biggest organization in Poland that defends the rights of workers" - Stanislaw Karczmarek, 30, Solidarity member, maintenance technician.
"When we got freedom, they (Solidarity members) were together, now they are divided. It's not Solidarity. They are different" - Jan Prajss, 84, veteran combatant.
"Ordinary people are not interested, they are too busy with their own matters" - Lidia Kwater, 26, college student.
"If the Russians were to come back or if the communists were to take over and threaten our independence, I think the people would start thinking about Poland again. But now they are not" -Agata, 35, account executive.
"I don't know what they want at Ursus. If they cannot work and make the factory work, then they should find jobs someplace else" - Kasia, 21, economics student.
