The tripartite EU agency providing knowledge to assist in the development of better social, employment and work-related policies. Download article in original language: The reasons for the weakness of Poland's trade union movement have been examined at a seminar held in May and in a book based on the discussions at the seminar.
This article summarises the main arguments and findings. In Maya seminar on the situation of Polish trade unions and their relations with European trade union organisations was organised by the Warsaw School of Economics and the Polish office of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.
The book will present the latest data on trade union density in Poland and analyse why the Polish trade union movement — once among the strongest in Problems faced by trade union in india - has become less influential than its counterparts in many other central and eastern European countries. Below, we summarise some of the book's main findings and arguments. Polish trade unions have recently faced a relatively serious crisis in terms of their membership levels PLF.
The forthcoming book asks why in Poland — a country with strong trade union traditions — after 14 years of political and economic transformation, the level of unionisation has fallen below that in virtually all other countries of central and eastern Europe TNF. It is reported that trade union membership as a proportion of all wage earners currently stands at around: The first group of factors might apply to most countries.
It is widely argued that current trends of 'globalisation' and 'post-Fordism' exert a destructive effect on trade unions across the world. According to the most extreme versions of this viewpoint, 'post-Fordism' transforms trade unions into outdated institutions. The term 'post-Fordism' is generally used to refer to developments such as: It is argued that the 'traditional' working class working in large factories is gradually disappearing, whereas the number of workers employed on fixed-term or part-time contracts is increasing, with employees no longer permanently attached to one workplace.
All these factors are seen as tending to reduce trade union membership and influence. The second group of factors relate to a specific 'identity crisis' affecting the majority of trade unions in the former authoritarian socialist countries of central and problems faced by trade union in india Europe. These unions have participated actively in the creation of the new political system in these countries, and this is regarded as having resulted as a conflict of loyalties: This situation, it is argued, has considerably impaired the identification of workers with trade unions.
The third group of problems faced by trade union in india is specific to Poland and is regarded as the key source of explanations for the low level of unionisation in Poland. The book identifies a specific concurrence of the following three phenomena which have occurred since On the latter point, the legal regulations providing for union pluralism and voluntarism were conducive to the creation of new trade unions.
Moreover, a number of independent trade unions were created which were registered only in a single company. Frequently, company managements discreetly attempted to create their own 'yellow' trade unions whose main objective was to prevent the problems faced by trade union in india unions from conducting a united policy.
Although these practices have been discouraged to a certain extent by recent changes to the legislation on union representation, they have still managed to undermine the prestige of the trade union movement. A key element of this model was the existence within most companies of at least two competing trade unions, neither of which was able to prevail over the other problems faced by trade union in india genuinely represent the workforce as a whole. This instigated a process which further weakened the Polish trade union movement: Due to circumstances beyond their control, union leaders were forced to shift from attempting to represent the interests of all Polish workers to representing their own membership, as problems faced by trade union in india with the other trade union or unions and the political functions assumed by the unions in each case limited to one side of the political spectrum restricted their scope of activities to their own organisation and their own political and ideological orientation.
Naturally, there were certain common interests, such as negotiating social benefits and sectoral agreements eg in metalworking or mining or making joint contributions to the preparation of labour legislation, though even in these areas certain political divisions could be detected.
Nevertheless, it was impossible for these leaders to cooperate on a long-term basis, since they were forced to submit to the interests of their own organisations - or rather to the interests of certain groups within their organisations, such as the 'opinion-makers', influential individuals, other leaders etc. In their everyday work, trade unions were confronted with the necessity to attend to their own clientele.
The only area where the spirit of cooperation between various trade union organisations flourished was in negotiating social benefits for those branches of the economy which faced large-scale redundancies. The quarrelling, or at best mutually indifferent, trade unions were operating in the companies where half of the workers were not union members. The ambience was conducive to a more rapid than expected erosion of union membership. Company-level union organisations were gradually losing their credibility as defenders of the interests of non-union workers.
They ceased to be considered by workers as defending the whole company workforce, but rather as solely looking after their own members.
This partisanship became especially conspicuous in cases of planned collective redundancies, when each trade union made great efforts to defend its own members, in particular those with a long membership period and many years of contributions. According to the book, these widespread practices discouraged younger workers from joining unions, as they believed that in the event of redundancies, the unions would defend only long-standing members.
He stated that, along with the OPZZ official at the same company, 'we are doing our best to problems faced by trade union in india the members of our unions I see it in the following way: Otherwise, why join problems faced by trade union in india trade union? It is strange that people no longer see that this is only natural — as with the insurance policy provided in various firms, membership of a trade union is not mandatory unlike problems faced by trade union in india social security system.
In the second half of the s, Polish trade unions launched a series of initiatives aimed at reversing the downward tendency in the number of union members, and there have been some indications that the fall in membership has been successfully prevented though these data should be treated with care, as other factors may be of importance, in particular changes in the privatisation process over the past two years - PLF. At central level, the initiatives to revitalise trade unions have taken two basic forms.
At the level of individual unions, many have begun to recruit new members. Despite certain problems, in most cases the unit has managed to establish new trade union organisations — with only the operations of US-based multinationals, which are generally hostile towards institutionalised forms of worker representation, posing difficulties.
OPZZ has founded a 'labour confederation', which has similar objectives and has been similarly successful in its recruitment of new members. At company level, various initiatives have been launched with the prinicipal objective of encouraging cooperation between trade unions. In the second half of the s, trade unions within many companies became convinced of the need to act in cooperation with each other, and thus started to operate in this way.
A key factor in the effectiveness of company-level union organisations is unanimity, which is possible if: Problems faced by trade union in india example, in a large foreign-owned food company 11 trade union organisations have merged, electing a common representation and executive, which has allowed them to represent the whole several thousand-strong workforce.
Although Polish trade unions have long been regarded by some observers as powerful institutions, in reality they are quite feeble and ineffective. The discussion at the seminar in May and in the forthcoming book is marked by a mood of moderate pessimism. However, some of participants were of the opinion that the requirements imposed by accession to the European Union in May can lead to closer cooperation between the various trade unions.
Union cooperation within the Tripartite Commission and various common initiatives are cited in support of this view. The author of this article concurs with the second problems faced by trade union in india — the challenges connected to EU accession leave room for a considerable amount of optimism about the future of Polish trade unionism.
Eurofound is an agency of the European Union. Skip to main content. Below, we summarise some of the book's main findings and arguments The problems facing Polish trade unions Polish trade unions have recently faced a relatively serious crisis in terms of their membership problems faced by trade union in india PLF.
In order to answer the above question, the book examines three groups of factors, as follows. Global trends The first group of factors might apply to most countries. Trends common to former state socialist countries The second group of factors relate to a specific 'identity crisis' affecting the majority of trade unions in the former authoritarian socialist countries problems faced by trade union in india central and eastern Europe.
Specific Polish trends The third group of factors is specific to Poland and is regarded as the key source of explanations for the low level of unionisation in Poland. Both main trade union organisations were for a long time directly entangled in politics. Whether or not these perceived orientations are correct, what matters is that they have been clearly distinguished by workers and that they have confirmed and reinforced political divisions among workers.
Current legal regulations have led to the institutionalisation of divided and competing trade union organisations and their confinement to specific companies, where their leaders hold a regular post and the unions have their base and 'clientele'. This idea would have allowed for some pluralism within companies, as a general problems faced by trade union in india union could co-exist with an occupational trade union seg for engineers and technicians. However, this proposal was rejected and the legal regulations that were introduced in the s provided for trade union pluralism and 'voluntarism'.
Commentary Although Polish trade unions have long been regarded by some observers as powerful institutions, in reality they are quite feeble and ineffective. Tell us what you think. Leave this field blank. Click to share this page to Facebook securely.
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