History of Trade Unions in Poland - The Role of Trade Unions in Polish Politics After The Transformation 1989

The Role of Trade Unions in Polish Politics After The Transformation 1989

From its beginning in August 1980 Solidarność was not only a trade union but also a political movement. Many later political groupings and parties stem from this environment. All in all 23 political parties had their roots and leaders linked to Solidarność, amongst them today’s biggest governing party ‘Civic Platform’ (PO) and the biggest opposition party ‘Law and Justice’ (PiS). Although the relations between political parties and trade unions used to be close, this decreased after 2000, but is still visible. Solidarność sympathises with the conservative parties of the national catholic right-wing, whereas OPZZ tends towards alliances with the post-communist Left.

During the transformation period national trade unions were highly politicised. Lech Wałęsa, the first chairman of Solidarność became president of Poland in 1990 and many trade union members held government offices and seats in Parliament and on management boards of big state-owned companies. As a result Solidarność gained enormous influence, but as a trade union simultaneously lost most of its leaders to politics. This led to a loss of authority of Solidarność as an institution representing workers’ interests and separated it away from its grass roots members.

In the parliamentary elections in 1997 one of the parties running for parliament was the Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS), a political party coalition gathered around Solidarność. It consisted of 20 small parties and 16 further groupings. AWS became by far the biggest party with almost 34 per cent of valid votes and gained 201 seats in the Sejm (out of 460), as well as 51 out of 100 seats in the Senate and thus had the absolute majority in the second chamber of the Polish parliament. Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek as well as most of the AWS ministers came from the trade union. The trade union’s chairman Marian Krzaklewski (from February 1991 until September 2002) was simultaneously chairman of the AWS and its parliamentary grouping in the Sejm. His most important collaborators came from the trade union’s National Commission and took part in negotiations even when they were not members of parliament. Consequently Krzaklewski – as chairman of the trade union, of the party and of the parliamentary grouping – and the members of the trade union’s National Commission became an extra-parliamentary centre of influence.

The ‘rule of trade unions’ ended in the year 2001. Due to conflicts within the party and accusations of corruption AWS became unattractive and weak in the eyes of the electorate. In the parliamentary elections of 2001 it did not manage to get over the legal hurdle of 8 per cent of votes for electoral coalitions and since then has not had a single parliamentarian in the Sejm. Now came the time of the coalition of the Left led by the ‘Democratic Left Alliance’ (SLD), where many parliamentarians came from OPZZ. In 2005 ‘Law and Justice’, a party very near to Solidarność, and its partners removed the Left Alliance which was related to OPZZ. After the September 2005 and October 2007 elections seven parliamentarians from the OPZZ still belonged to left alliances.

The structural reforms of the nineties lead to the impoverishment of certain parts of the society, to dismissals and growing unemployment, for which not only the government but also the trade unions were blamed. Their direct engagement in Polish politics had produced negative effects. Due to their participation in less than pristine governments trade unions almost forfeited their reputation and support. Nevertheless a large part of the leaders and members believe until today that in order to achieve something in politics one has to use one’s own people. The trade union Solidarność openly favours the ‘Law and Justice’ party PiS. During the presidential elections in 2005 it intensively called on the electorate to vote for PiS candidate Lech Kaczyński. The weekly newspaper ‘Tygodnik Solidarność’ constantly supported the policy of PiS which governed from 2005 to 2007 with the rural interest party Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland (Samoobrona) and the extreme right-wing League of Polish Families (LPR).

Even the hitherto neutral Trade Unions Forum was close to getting involved with political parties. In June 2005 its board decided to sign an agreement with the populist Samoobrona. However, already in August 2005 FZZ annulled this agreement, because Samoobrona did not grant FZZ the promised places on the electoral lists for the parliamentary elections in 2005.