Unions vow to challenge the privatization of KGHM

Unions vow to challenge the privatization of KGHM The leader of the Copper Industry Workers' Trade Union (ZZPPM) has announced his organization would not accept the concept of total privatization of the copper mining conglomerate KGHM Polska Miedz. "Plans by the [Treasury] Minister to dispose of 10% of shares in the fourth-quarter and then the rest of its shares next year, is tantamount to a betrayal of the Polish worker," reads a ZZPPM statement. The union says similar plans implemented by the rightist governments in the early 1990s, brought nothing but the sale of strategic national assets for a penny at the expense of jobs. Michal Marczak, an analysts at DI BRE Bank, believes the best the government can do is to quickly sell off KGHM to limit the influence of the trade unions that have in the past rendered the company ungovernable. (Prawo i Gospodarka, page 12)