Unions and employees protest for faster privatization of sugar industry

Several hundred workers and sugar planters associated with Slaska Spolka Cukrowa (SSC) protested on Tuesday in front of the Treasury Ministry against the prolonged privatization of their sugar plants. "The French concern will give us work," read one banner. SSC was nearly sold to French concern Saint Louis Sucre, but the transaction fell through. This was due to the fact that the Minister of the Interior and Administration forwarded an objection to the sale. "Let the new Treasury Minister see our poverty. The sugar plant in Ziebice is in a state of bankruptcy, the sugar plant in Pastuchow is being liquidated, and the same fate awaits two other sugar plants," said Jozef Szymczyk, deputy head of the employees sugar union. (Rzeczpospolita, p. B2) A.C.