[The following article appeared in the June 1 issue of Rouge, weekly newspaper of the Ligue Communiste, French section of the Fourth International. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
Convoked two years after the Gdansk and Szczecin revolts, the Seventh Congress of Polish trade unions (held November 13-16, 1972) had as its aim drawing a balance sheet on the "new social policy" and tracing out the perspectives for tradeunion work for the coming years.
Kruczek, the president of the unions, declared at the opening session: "Our activity embodies dialectical unity among three sections of concern -increasing production, educating the workers, and improving the workers' living conditions. During the past two years, we have concentrated especially on improving the conditions of life and work. Now, without neglecting this, we must intensify our work in the areas of productivity and education."
That's the program: educate the workers, because they are ill-bred; make them work harder, because they are lazy.
And this is the balance sheet: we have spoiled the workers.
The president of the unions is not the only one to have drawn such a balance of the last two years of Gierekism. The Polish press, seconded in this regard by the Western bourgeois press (Le Figaro, for example), is singing the praises of the "realistic and humanistic" policy followed since 1970. In Poland, this is a question of Gierek and his bunch "creating a climate of confidence." In France, it is a matter of presenting the industrialists with an enticing image of "Polish June 18, 1973
socialism" and of alerting them to the possible openings.
As for the [French] Stalinists, embarrassed by Czechoslovakia, they added Poland to their propaganda arsenal during the election campaign.
Nevertheless, in all these cases, one thing is "overlooked" - and that is that the "new regime" originated after about a hundred workers were killed and more than a thousand wounded in the streets. Wage increases are fondly pointed to, the much more attractive shops are described; but a lot less attention is paid to looking at what is going on in the Polish factories and how broad layers of the population are actually living.
According to official statistics, during the period 1971-1972 real wages grew by more than 12%, as compared to only 1.3% in 1970 (and 10% over the five-year period 1965-1970). More than 4 million Poles (that is, 40% of all persons employed in the nationalized sector) got wage increases. In a general sense, the income of the population increased 10% in 1972 alone (increases in wages and social benefits, retirement funds and various other allocations, increases in income for the rural population). For 1973, the plan calls for 6.6% wage increases. That means that the 17-18% wage increases planned for the whole 1971- 1975 five-year period will probably be attained by the end of 1973.
Because we do not believe in the spontaneous "kindness" of the bureaucrats, we must ask the question: What does this wage hike result from?
Because we are aware of the breadth of the crisis into which the bureaucratic management of the Gomulka team threw the country, we must also ask: Is the present improvement of living conditions good enough?
Let us look at the facts.
The general figures cited above, which are often used as proof that there has been a significant rise in the standard of living, do not completely take account of the social inequalities that still exist in Poland. In the specialized press, in certain publications with limited press runs that are not meant for distribution to the broader public, we find the image of a poor Poland.
They even speak of "areas of misery," or, since it is very difficult to give an exact pieture of these, they try to sketch out a "panorama of misery."
For obvious reasons, the data we have are fragmentary. The many people whose living conditions are bad do not form a well-defined social layer. There are certain occupational categories with especially low wages: workers, particularly unskilled workers, some of whom are newly arrived from the countryside, schoolteachers, nurses, persons employed in small factories, students. It is especially from this milieu that we often find people who resort to what has been called "occasional prostitution." There are also people who cannot find work; or people who have no housing and, because they have to find someplace to live, lay out the better part of their wages for extremely high rents. (The housing shortage today stands at about 1 million units.) Sometimes there are people who get relatively good salaries, but who have many children.
According to official statistics, during 1971-1972 there were 22,000 persons who were not able to find work in their fields; of these about 100,000 were youths who had been trained for various administrative tasks, 80,000 were technicians, 30,000 were schoolteachers, and about 10,000 were women who had received no professional training.
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There are presently 500,000 families of unskilled workers that have six or more children and whose per capita income stands below the necessary minimum. This minimum is officially set at 800 zlotys a month (about US$50). Nevertheless, in a good many cases "below the necessary minimum" means 200 zlotys. By way of example, we might point out that a kilo of sugar costs 12 zlotys; a kilo of butter, 70 zlotys; a kilo of pork ribs, 60 zlotys. A half million children cared for only by their mothers (unmarried, widowed, or divorced) are in the same situation.
Of 3.5 million retirees, 2.5 million live on benefits that total between 600 and 1,000 zlotys [a month).
In the absence of exact laws governing their situations, those who are victims of workplace accidents and their families often find themselves in a very bad way materially. Nevertheless, on this point, as well as on the situation of certain peasant families and agricultural workers (those employed by state firms), there are no official statistics.
As to the positive column of "Gierekism," it does partially exist. But it is the fruit of the workers mobilizations.
The Workers Mobilization
Starting on December 12, 1970 — the date on which a rise in food prices averaging more than 8 percent was abruptly announced —and for the following two months, the Polish workers in struggle were confronted by the central bureaucratic regime, first the Gomulkaists and then, after December 19, the Gierek team.
February 15, 1971, marked a great workers victory on a national scale: The Lodz strikers forced the new leadership to rescind the price increases and to decide on a freeze on food prices for the coming two years. But this victory was in no way followed by a return to normality. On the contrary, 1971 and 1972 were marked by social tensions that were expressed through many pinpoint actions of a local character -but big enough so that the press (at least certain periodicals) were forced to take notice. Also it is obvious that many of these actions went by unreported
In the course of these two years, many "work stoppages" (the official terminology) were reported in nearly terminology) were reported in nearty 748
all the big Polish industrial centers. All these strikes were directed against low wages-in Rybnik, Silesia, the miners asked for a 25% increase; the textile workers in Lodz asked for 20%; there were strikes against the lack of cafeteria facilities (out of 6 million Polish workers, only 10% are able to eat in factory cafeterias); there were strikes against bad working conditions that often cause accidents, against the insufficient space in the workers' apartments, against the housing shortage, or against the unjust allocation of the apartments controlled by the factories.
Toward the end of 1972, the workers at the tire factory in Olsztyn organized a strike that all but turned into a riot. In face of the intransigence (or perhaps impotence) of their leaders, they took to the streets.
The Olsztyn strike clearly points out the following fact: In the bureaucratized countries, each "work stoppage," regardless of its initial limited or local character, contains the germ of the threat of a generalized confrontation with the central regime and the repressive forces. For this reason, the Polish workers use this weapon with caution, even if they have finally achieved the change that strikes are no longer denounced as "violations of socialist legality." Thus, during 1971-1972, the workers mobilization sometimes retained a "legal" character.
On several occasions Polish journalists have reported the formation of "informal groups" within the official trade unions. Rank-and-file union members - and sometimes even members of the factory council-have formed groups that address demands directly to the managers without going through the normal hierarchical channels.
These attempts to set up little "wildcat" unions within the docile bureaucratized official unions have had some success. In a chemical factory near Sochaczew and in a paper factory in Jeziorno, these "informal groups" won wage increases for some classifications of workers. In Zyrardow, in a big textile plant, such a group forced the managers to accelerate modernization of the machines, because the production quotas imposed on the workers were impossible to meet with the old equipment, and this had a bad effect on the workers' wages.
The shipyard workers in Szczecin and the miners in Rybnik chose another form of "legal" struggle by instituting court cases against the managers. In Szczecin they formed a group of about twenty persons; in Rybnik they started with about fifty and persisted with about thirty "diehards" to demand payment of quite considerable sums that were due them for overtime pay and bonuses. In both these cases, the workers won the trials, which lasted about two years, during which time they came up before many judicial bodies. It is impossible here to go into detail about the complexities of this procedure or into the measures of intimidation the workers were subjected to —we leave that to the reader's imagination.
The bureaucracy did not sit around passively during these two years of workers mobilization. The partial work rules instituted recently are aimed at breaking the workers solidarity and at dividing the workers in their work places. We can mention here the formation in factories of "good labor" brigades and "disciplinary brigades" (the latter do not get bonuses, get less pay for the same work, are forced to perform various tasks without pay, have to work extra hours, and also do not receive certain social benefits).
Thus, the management is able to transfer any worker who is too active or too "demanding" into one of these "disciplinary brigades" (that is, whenever attempts to corrupt such a worker by transfering him or her into a "good labor" brigade fail).
More general attempts to use the unions as simple cogs in the policy of the state and the Communist party are another "classical" means of trying to break the workers struggles. But in this area, the workers are beginning to draw some lessons from what has happened.
The most recent wave of strikes proves this, for it was organized at the very moment that the congress of trade unions was meeting in Warsaw. The movement began a few days before the congress opened and extended to nearly all the big Polish industrial centers. Gierek and Jaroszewicz (president of the council of ministers) had to go to Szczecin and Gdansk to discuss with the strikers, just as they had had to do two years before.
The workers demands dealt with the functioning of the unions. Everywhere the workers also asked that the freeze on food prices be maintained. On this point, they got total and immediate satisfaction - the freeze was extended for another year.
Indirectly, this latest strike wave was the reason that the new labor code (whose elaboration has already been going on for fifteen years) could not be adopted by the congress. Strengthened by what was going on in the factories, some of the congress delegates threatened to walk out of the meeting hall if there were a "vote" on the labor code. (They knew perfectly well that the results of the vote were prearranged.)
Labor Code and Working Conditions
The labor legislation presently in force dates from the 1930s; that is, it is the same labor code as the one governing relations between the workers and the Polish bourgeoisie.
From the viewpoint of the bureaucrats, the new labor code-now in its ninth version - must bring a legal sanction to the state of affairs that has existed for several years. The following proposals, contained in this code, delineate working conditions in Poland and are now the subject of determined discussions between the workers and bureaucrats:
• A 46-48 hour workweek. The workers are asking for a five-day forty-hour week. That's impossible, the bureaucrats say, because production would fall. Yes, the workers reply, that's possible, but the answer is to organize production better and to modernize outdated factories.
• On paid vacations. 14 days after one year's work; 20 days a year after six years; 26 days after ten years. The workers are demanding the same paid vacations as nonmanual workers, that is, 24 days after one year. (At the beginning of 1971 the workers won elimination of the differential between manual and nonmanual workers on the matter of sick leave. The number of workers who dare to call in sick has significantly increased since then, and the bureaucrats are complaining.)
• The manager decides on firings. The workers are demanding that the manager's decision not be valid unless prior agreement is given by the factory council.
• The code remains hazy on the terms of disability pensions and workers compensation for on-the-job accidents. The workers are demanding that these be clearly defined.
The workers are also demanding that cases in which they have to pay
GIEREK: Workers still not under control after two years.
for damages to machinery and tools be clearly defined. (As of now, they have to pay for damages that occur because of the defective character of equipment.)
• Finally, the code stipulates that conflicts between the workers and the management cannot be brought to court. The workers have objected, for obvious reasons.
The workers won a partial victory in preventing passage of the new labor code: They stopped current working conditions from receiving legal sanction.
It must nevertheless be stressed that the very many strikes (often victorious) as well as the actions of a "legal" type are-except in Yugoslavia - unprecedented events in the "people's democracies." During the 1970 revolt, the workers demanded changes in the unions -free elections of delegates, more autonomy in relation to the state and the party. These changes were not won and recently, during the congress, the bureaucratic union hierarchy asserted its desire to bring union activity further under the pressure of these two apparatuses.
The response the Polish workers have given and are giving in practice is clear. By trying either to outflank the official unions from inside or to directly lead a struggle outside them, the workers are showing that they have become conscious of two points: that it is necessary to wage an organized struggle against the bureaucratic regime, and that it is necessary to wage it in an autonomous way, independently of the official organizations.