6.2 Polish employment relations: continuities and change


The postsocialist Polish employment relations system comprised four distinct but overlapping systems that prevailed in different sectors of the economy. First, there remained elements of the socialist period, with politically oriented union leaders “ both antisocialist and socialist “ supported by small groups of rank and file union members . Solidarity and the OPZZ represented strong continuity with the socialist period, although of course the significance of this continuity was very different for the two movements. Labour organization in the state sector and amongst partially privatized firms reflected the decaying Socialist pattern. Second, there were elements of ˜ transformative neoliberal corporatism (Iankova, 1998), in which the state sought to create interest group consensus within a tripartite framework. Governments throughout the region sought to develop neocorporatism as a means of reducing the dangers of social conflict by incorporating the potential leaders of social discontent “ the trade unions “ into governing structures. Although neocorporatism was less necessary in Poland than elsewhere because union leaders were already incorporated into the political system, the same motivation to reduce social conflict existed. Third, there were elements of free collective bargaining, with multi-employer or single employer union bargaining arrangements, as sponsored by the International Labour Organisation. Fourth, there were also elements of postcollectivist human resource management (HRM), associated primarily with US-owned multinationals.

6.2.1 Socialist inheritances and postsocialist continuities

The employment relations system that developed after 1989 was built upon the residues of the socialist system; it was not constructed de novo. This continuity was both personal and institutional. Many of the participants “ managers and union officials “ had played comparable roles in the socialist period, with socialist personnel giving way to Solidarity activists after 1989. There was also significant continuity at the institutional level. For enterprises that remained in state ownership the system was a slackened form of the socialist system, with a weakening of ministry control and a decline in state funding but with the state seeking to maintain control over wage determination, initially through the popiwek system. Employers organizations were weak and state sponsored, even when they sought to represent owners of privatized enterprises. The initiative lay with enterprise managers, as in the late socialist period. Trade unions inherited the resources acquired during the socialist period, if with considerable controversy over their allocation.

The defining element of continuity with the socialist period was the intimate link between employment relations and politics at both the individual and the institutional level. For managers, contacts in the state apparatus were important means of securing enterprise benefits (favourable allocations for capital investment or coverage of losses, state orders, and sympathetic treatment of proposals for restructuring and privatization ), regardless of the precise ownership arrangements. For trade unions the benefits of political links were even greater. Trade union members were disproportionately drawn from the state sector, where wages depended directly on the state budget. More generally a network of state contacts helped to secure financial resources to maintain employment levels. The benefits of the close links were two-way. The links between the state and enterprise managers gave the state access to, if not control over, the direct controllers of economic assets. The links between the state and trade unions enabled political groups to gain influence over a major means of political mobilization (albeit a less effective one than the Catholic Church). Trade unions provided means for political mobilization for both the postsocialist and the liberal parties, as well as leverage for individuals seeking political careers. There were close links between the OPZZ and the SLD party, whilst Solidarity played a direct role in government and “ even when it decided to distance itself from politics “ remained intimately linked to the Solidarity “AWS Party.

The problems posed by the close association between political parties and trade unions were acute, with the trade unions effectively surrendering their independent bargaining power. Eventually, in the spring of 2001 Solidarity decided not to support Solidarity “AWS candidates, thus contributing to the party s electoral disaster in the 2001 Sejm elections . At its fourteenth National Assembly in Poznan in October 2001 Solidarity decided to prohibit the combining of trade union and political functions. Solidarity activists believed that the political divisions imported into the movement by electoral alliances and the use of Solidarity symbols by political groupings was weakening the movement and inhibiting effective union activity in the workplace.

As in the socialist period, trade union organization continued to rely on full-time officials, if increasingly elected rather than appointed and with only limited rank and file experience in union affairs. Even during the heyday of Solidarity, institutionalized shopfloor organization similar to the shop steward system in Britain and the V ertrauensleute in Germany did not exist. Union officials operated in a centripetal manner, adhering to state bureaucratic procedures rather than reflecting shopfloor opinion and the exercise of enterprise-level bargaining power. Union officials were responsible to the organization that employed them, not to the members who had elected them. A major duty of union official, was cultural mobilization, to act as a transmission belt for ideological matters. The ideological content differed, of course, from the socialist period; the ideological orientation was now towards the ˜market , which was not given a precise definition. Solidarity representatives were the most strongly promarket representatives in the Sejm in the early 1990s (Kitschelt et al ., 1999, p. 327). Trade union officials had more positive views of the market than trade union members, but both showed more ideological commitment than workers employed in the private sector. For Solidarity union officials, building the market replaced building socialism as the ultimate objective.

The lack of differentiation between employment relations and politics was evident amongst officials of the OPZZ as well as Solidarity, although the OPZZ adopted a specifically ˜non-political stance, necessitated by the need to distance itself from its socialist past. Nevertheless the policies of the OPZZ were coordinated with those of the SLD. Hence the OPZZ was more compliant when the SLD formed the government (1995 “97) than under Solidarity governments.

The substantial involvement of union officials in politics was not popular with union members, who believed that their economic interests were being sacrificed for political objectives. Detailed plant-level research in the electrical engineering and electronics sector showed that the majority of union members believed that trade unions should focus on employment issues, especially job security and employment protection, as well as wages. ˜Society and factory employees are rather opposed to the intense engagements of trade unions in politics. They consider that the trade unions should limit themselves exclusively to filling a trade union role (Cichomski et al ., 1998, p. 175). According to survey evidence, in 1996 over 70 per cent of Poles believed that unions should focus on industrial relations, a figure that is likely to have risen since.

6.2.2 Transformative neocorporatism

The task of corporatist institutions was to ensure consensus amongst the politico-economic elite. Although tripartite institutions involved employers as well as the state and unions, the major supporters of tripartism were the state and the unions: in exchange for influence over social and economic policy trade unions were expected to contribute to the maintenance of social discipline and to restrain wage-push inflationary pressures. Such social discipline was a means of reducing the scope for social conflict. In Poland the tripartite commission was set up relatively late, coming into existence only in 1994 following the 1993 Enterprise Pact. Even after its belated formation the Tripartite Commission for Social and Economic Affairs did not receive the salience accorded to it in, for example, Bulgaria.

The main tasks of the Tripartite Commission, as elsewhere in CEE, were to monitor macroeconomic trends, evaluate overall economic policy and make recommendations, especially with regard to wage policies, employment policy and social benefits. However the early experiences of the commission body were not very promising : the government did not present a comprehensive policy that employers and unions could discuss, and employers were constrained from discussing wages because of the operation of income control. Furthermore, neither employers nor the unions operated in a coherent way: employers were divided between the Confederation of Polish Employers and the Confederation of Private Employers; and there was little agreement between the OPZZ and Solidarity, the two union movements seeking to use the commission for their own political ends. The commission collapsed in 1999 when the OPZZ withdrew from participation after criticizing the government for failing to take the commission seriously. Thereupon the trade unions reverted to their previous practice of direct political engagement with the government. Throughout this period the commission had been consultative rather than executive, and the state had come to believe that the consultation process was redundant.

The commission was revived in July 2001 when legislation was passed to place it on a firmer legal foundation. The Act defined the criteria for the representation of workers and employers organizations, provided a timetable for the commission to express its opinion on the state budget and provided for the establishment of social dialogue committees at the regional level. The EU s commitment to social dialogue has put added pressure on the state to take the commission seriously and to developing related institutions at the sectoral and local levels, but the extent to which formal provisions will translate into effective tripartite institutions remains uncertain .

The problems for tripartism in Poland came from two directions. On the one hand tripartite structures were superfluous as direct communication channels between trade union leaders and the state existed outside the formal structures. On the other hand trade union officials had only limited influence over the members they claimed to represent. The contribution of the Tripartite Commission to the maintenance of consensus and the prevention of social conflict was therefore limited, as was the contribution of tripartism to Polish employment relations despite the commitment to social dialogue required by the negotiations on the acquis communitaire .

6.2.3 Free collective bargaining

The classic model of free collective bargaining involves direct bargaining between employers and trade unions, without intervention by the state. The bargaining may be between multi-employer associations and one or more trade unions, or between a single company and the unions. Where bargaining is between a single employer and trade unions it may be centralized in multiplant bargains or decentralized to the plant level. Effective collective bargaining requires disciplined employers that seek to prevent rogue employers from breaking away to negotiate more (or less) favourable terms, and strong trade unions capable of acting strategically.

Under the 1994 Labour Code two types of collective bargaining were permitted in Poland: above-company-level bargaining and company-level agreements. Multicompany agreements were registered with the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, whilst company-level agreements were registered with regional labour inspection offices. The Labour Code was amended in 2000 to make bargaining procedures, especially at the enterprise level, easier to operate . According to the Labour Inspectorate about 10 000 company-level agreements and 114 above-company-level agreements were in operation in 2001 (NSZZ Solidarnosc, 2001). Despite the Labour Code there was only limited collective bargaining in the classic Anglo-Saxon sense and the fundamental conditions required for its success were absent. Employers organizations were limited, and thus the framework for multi-employer bargaining did not exist (Meardi, 2001, p. 6). There was a lack of articulation between the structure of companies, many of which were holding companies, and the possible structure of employers associations. The great majority of agreements were at the enterprise level. These were often concluded at the initiative of management, since their registration provided a means of regularizing bargaining relationships. The bargaining process was often a formality , a means of institutionalizing relationships in workplaces where there was little collective organization amongst employees.

6.2.4 Human resource management (HRM)

The HRM model is individualist rather than collectivist. It involves individualized employment contracts, reflecting individual capabilities, sophisticated methods of employee selection, targeted training programmes, flexibility in work organization and task performance, and performance-related pay. The employee is viewed as an item of human capital, to be developed as much as an item of physical capital. The extent to which HRM practices have been adopted in Poland is unclear. There is some evidence that US multinationals have imported HRM strategies into Poland, and Meardi (2001, p. 6) suggests that both German and US multinationals have sought to develop HRM style ˜flexible employment strategies.




Change Management in Transition Economies. Integrating Corporate Strategy, Structure and Culture
Change Management in Transition Economies: Integrating Corporate Strategy, Structure and Culture
ISBN: 1403901635
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 121

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net