Two reports about current class conflicts in Poland translated from wildcat #79, winter 2007. The first report describes the nurses' mobilisation in June and July. The article was written a few weeks after the events and attempts a critical evaluation. The second article about the two and a half week sit-down strike of the Kielce bus drivers was written directly after the end of the strike.

These struggles have received totally different coverage: From the outset, the nurses' tent village was in the centre of media attention and enjoyed huge popularity in the entire country while the bus drivers' strike - one of the toughest class conflicts in the last years - took two weeks to be noticed outside of Kielce. There are many reasons for this: The nurses' movement was organised on a nationwide basis while the bus drivers' strike was locally limited. The tent village in Warsaw was not far away from journalists in the capital while Kielce is a difficult-to-reach provincial town. The nurses were attacked by the police right at the beginning. The bus drivers too received nationwide attention when they were attacked by security guards after two weeks.

Paradoxically, one of the reasons why the nurses became so popular was the fact that their protest remained symbolic. Instead of attacking the National Health Service, the hospital administrations and - as collateral damage - the patients, the nurses relied on their union to gain something for them at a higher political level. But also the bus drivers have struggled within a union framework and let themselves be instrumentalised for the union's political games. Currently, there is fierce fighting between the different fractions of the Polish ruling class. The unions are quite clever in using their alliances with one or the other faction to gain advantages for their clientele. According to official figures, the number of workplace conflicts in Poland in 2006 has increased by 274 per cent compared to the year before. This trend has not yet translated itself into a new workers' autonomy in relation to the unions.

The nurses' tent village

This summer, several thousand nurses from Poland's state hospitals camped out in tents in front of the prime minister's office for four weeks.¹ Their protest was aimed at raising their poor wages of 1,200 to 1,300 Zl (approx. 320 Euros) a month.² The tent action itself was triggered by police violence against participants of a large nurses' demo on June 19. Subsequently, several nurses from the leadership of the OZZPiP union³ occupied a room in the PM's office for a week in order to force the PM to talk to them, while outside the building the "white town" quickly grew to about 150 tents in which an average of 300 inhabitants took shifts over the weeks. Most of them were OZZPiP activists who came on their free days, took holidays or union leave for the action. The nurses quit their camp without concrete results when the PM left for his holidays on July 15th.

Everyone loves the nurses...

The "public" received the protests very positively. A great majority in the country supported the action and agreed with the wage demands, according to polls. Many people came along spontaneously and brought food, blankets or sleeping bags. People were impressed with the women's determination and optimism. Many seemed to have been waiting for this movement which exemplified the concerns of a large part of society: Poland is modernising and turning into one of the EU's extended workshops, but wages have remained low.⁴ The nurses also made the connection to the current emigration exodus: "Stay healthy, we're leaving!" or "We want to work not emigrate".

Support came not only from almost all left-wing groups and grouplets⁵ but - at least verbally - also from the neoliberal opposition who likes anything that gets the religious-right-wing government into trouble. PO⁶ leader Tusk condemned the police brutality just like Warsaw's PO mayor, former central bank boss Gronkiewicz-Waltz. Stars and starlets from the cultural scene gave concerts and/or spent a night in a tent.

Even though other unions like left-wing Sierpień80 tried to get their foot into the door of the action, their influence remained limited to participation in the tent village's assemblies which discussed practical questions like protection from attacks. The OZZPiP seek their allies among neoliberals - for instance they asked the boss of the private employers' association, Bochniarz, to negotiate for them - but politically their monopoly was never questioned.

... But what exactly was it about?

Despite all the positive public feedback hardly anyone knew what actually happened in detail. For instance, many declared their solidarity with the "nurses' strike" although the nurses did not strike at all.⁷ There was no lack of strikes in Poland this year, however, like warning strikes for wage rises at Fiat in Tychy and Bielsko-Biala, at Opel in Gliwice or repeated wildcat strikes at the Cegielski machine factory in Poznan. The bus drivers in Kielce...

The nurses' concrete demands were as little known as the fact that there was no strike. Somehow they're asking 30 per cent more, right? In reality, the OZZPiP did not demand a direct pay rise but demanded the extension of the law concerning the rise of subsidies to personnel costs from 2006. After a doctors' strike in early 2006, this law made additional subsidies for the National Health Funds NFZ available in order to raise personnel spendings by 30 per cent in the period from July 2006 to September 2007.

Polish hospitals are permanently skint⁸ and regularly receive similar financial support. The public Polish health system is chronically under-financed (Poland spends about 4 per cent of its GDP on its health system, compared to 10 per cent in Germany and 15 per cent in the USA). There are lobbies in all parties who would like to commercialise the health system in order to open up the potentially huge health business for clinics, private practices and the pharmaceutical and medical technology industries. However, nobody knows how to finance this. On the one hand, raising the current health insurance contributions of 11.45 per cent or making the employers pay (in Poland contributions are paid exclusively by workers) are seen as politically not acceptable. On the other hand, an official return to budget funding would effectively block the road to commercialisation. So further small steps are being made on this road, like the introduction of private supplementary insurances (so far only between 1 and 2 per cent of people in Poland have something like that) and the creation of legal possibilities for doctors to make money on the side (so far they take an estimated 1 to 3 billion Euros of bribes a year from patients).⁹ At the same time, the current system is kept on its feet with temporary exceptional regulations.

The OZZPiP demands to extend the above-mentioned law for several years after 1 October 2007. They want to raise health spending - no matter whether through subsidies or through rising contributions - i.e. they want to enlarge the cake and thereby also enlarge the total wage year by year. On the other hand, nobody has ever talked about a 30 per cent wage increase, neither in the future nor in the past. According to the OZZPiP, the 30 per cent cost increase through the 2006 law has resulted in an average 17 per cent wage increase.¹⁰

In the background: the doctors' strike

The fact that the 30 per cent cost increase was written into a law at all was due to a doctors' strike. And in 2007 they are fighting for their interests again. Because the biggest strike in 2007 - the longest, and with the biggest participation - was the doctors' strike which started on 21st May. Current wages are very diverse and some of them below 1,500 Zl. The doctors' union OZZL has made clear nationwide demands: they want three times the national statistical average wage for specialised doctors, double for the others. Thus doctors not only talk about concrete amounts but also mark the social distance they would like to keep. The union left the decision about strikes to local strike committees in individual hospitals - just like negotiations and agreements. According to the union, there were strikes in different forms in about 230 of Poland's 800 state hospitals. In some places planned operations were cancelled, in others there were only emergency services, still others boycotted the settlement of accounts with the NFZ. Additionally, about 3,500 of 120,000 doctors in the Polish Health Service gave notice of termination. By now (late August) most hospitals have signed different agreements - and many doctors have called off their notices of termination. OZZL leader Bukiel - also advisor of the ultra-neoliberal party UPR - used the attention created by the strike - and the nurses' protest - to keep reiterating his main demand: privatisation of the Health Service!

Unlike the nurses, the doctors haven't endeared themselves to the public. On 21 August patients even occupied a hospital in Radom to protest against the doctors' strike. The doctors have neither shown a lot of consideration for patients nor tried to struggle together with the nurses.

Similarly, the OZZPiP see themselves as a representation of certified nurses and keep their distance from other hospital workers (assistant nurses, ambulance drivers, cleaning workers etc.). Instead, they attach themselves to the doctors and their representatives who were frequent and welcome guests in the "white town". They still do not plan any strikes although their demands have not been met. In late August, the union put up some tents again in front of Parliament and talked to the press. They also promise continued protests in September.

And the nurses?

Although many nurses in Poland liked the action this does not necessarily mean that they share the union's view about doctors or about the privatisation of the health system. But they have not spoken out nor organised any actions of their own. The "white town" looked a lot more lively than the usual plastic-bag-dress union rituals in Germany but still the action was organised from above - even though it must have been great for the participating nurses to get out of their usual lives, get to know colleagues from other cities and bathe in the "public's" sympathy for a few weeks.

Maybe the nurses in the country simply reckon like this: The average 17 per cent wage increase they received in 2006 still mean low wages in absolute figures (about 200 Zl more) and compared to other occupational groups. But they are among Poland's highest percental wage increases in the last years. Workers in the automobile industry got less: After years of almost no wage increases at all, this year the union (Solidarnosc) felt obliged to stake a stand and organise warning strikes and then signed quick and poor agreements: For example, Solidarnosc at Opel in Gliwice had demanded 500 Zl more per month and then signed a single payment of 2,500 Zl (approx. 200 Zl per month) with an average monthly net wage of about 2,300 Zl. In the postal service a spectacular wave of wildcat strikes last year resulted in a disappointing increase of 110 Zl monthly.¹¹ Therefore the nurses may speculate that the union will get them a good result again. By attaching themselves to the doctors who receive all the anger, they do not even have to spoil their moral position with the "public" and the patients. It remains to be seen whether this speculation will work out.

Bus drivers' strike in Kielce - workers' self-management as a victory?

After 17 days the bus drivers in the South Polish city of Kielce have surprisingly won their strike. The sale of the communal bus company MPK planned by the city's mayor was stopped and MPK given to the workers instead. The strike had been preceded by months of confrontation. One day before the end of the strike, one of MPK's operation yards had been brutally evicted by private security guards and then recaptured by the striking bus drivers on the next morning.

MPK employs 630 people, including 380 drivers, one of who is a woman. The 160 buses are old and keep breaking down. For years, the company has been incurring losses, according to the workers not least because some years ago the city divided up the company into the actual bus company (MPK) and a traffic planning authority (ZTM). ZTM is supposed to manage the public traffic "market" by organising tender procedures, issuing requirements and writing timetables. In reality it only controls the MPK and pushes it into debt with unfavourable conditions.

A collective agreement conflict has been going on for two years. The last wage increase was six years ago. Five years ago, Solidarnosc and the two smaller unions in the company agreed to lower wages by relinquishing bonuses and extra pay in order to "save the company". After 30 years of service, drivers earn about 1,600 Zl net, newly employed drivers earn less than 900 Zl net. Most workers are between 40 and 50 years old. According to drivers, few young people apply. Over the last few years, many have resigned and gone to England or Ireland or have become truck drivers. Now Solidarnosc is asking 500 Zl more for everyone.

Apart from wages, workers also demand improved working conditions: According to the drivers, ZTM's timetables are unrealistic which means that on the one hand buses are never on time and on the other hand drivers have practically no breaks between tours. Drivers also complain that the bus which took drivers home after the last tour has been cancelled; which means that some of those who can't afford a private car have to make long walks home at night.

Last year the issue of privatisation was added to the agenda. Before his re-election last year with 72 per cent of votes, Kielce's autocratic mayor Lubawski had promised not to sell MPK, but after the election he put all his weight behind selling it to the French Veolia corporation (which also operates train and bus lines in Germany under the name of Connex). The unions were not against privatisation as such but demanded a "social package" with five years of job protection, high compensations for lay-offs and wage increases. Veolia wanted to guarantee only job protection, and only for employees with unlimited contracts.

The conflict began to escalate when the mayor announced that the Veolia deal would go ahead.

Chronology

4 June: 480 employees participate in a strike ballot organised by Solidarnosc (without the other unions). 450 vote for strike.

19 June: The city signs a preliminary contract with Veolia. At the same time it tries to increase the pressure: ZTM organises a new call for tenders for the next ten years. Veolia says its will only sign the final contract if MPK wins the tender. The tender is tailor-made for the Veolia deal because it calls for high investments. In press interviews, the mayor says that MPK does not stand a chance against its many competitors. His bluff is called when MPK finally wins the tender in early August: There had been no other competitors at all.

21 June: MPK workers demonstrate in front of city hall and then enter the building and molest city councillors.

22 June: Warning strike from 4 to 8 a.m. Only 6 out of 160 buses go out into the streets. MPK management and mayor call the strike illegal because warning strikes may only last 2 hours. ZTM imposes a 300,000 Zl fine on MPK and threatens to cancel the carriage contract with MPK in case of further strikes. MPK management charge the 300,000 Zl to the account of MPK's Solidarnosc leader. The mayor threatens to immediately liquidate MPK and contract out the bus traffic to another carrier in case of further strikes.

28 June: Another 4 hour warning strike - but from 0 to 4 a.m., ie. outside traffic hours. No reaction from management and mayor.

Late June to mid July: Several rounds of negotiations of the social package between unions and Veolia. No result.

2 August: MPK drivers collectively donate blood which means they may take the rest of the day off.

10 August: Solidarnosc announces an unlimited strike starting on August 14. The mayor threatens to liquidate MPK immediately.

14 August: Not a single bus goes out into the streets. 200 drivers stand in front of the operation yard and refuse to let managers enter. The workers' assembly votes for an unlimited strike and elects a strike committee. The mayor refuses to talk to the strike committee because he deems the strike illegal.

15 August: A catholic Mass on the premises of the operation yard. It has been difficult to find a priest because the bishop - the mayor's brother-in-law - has prohibited his priests from saying Mass in MPK.

18 August: The city and Veolia have hired 80 replacement buses with drivers from other cities. The buses are supposed to park in the Pakosz operation yard, the smaller one of MPK's two operation yards, but cannot enter because 150 workers block the gate. In the end, the strike-breaker buses park on a lawn outside town.

19 August: Veolia's strike-breaker buses service the city's most important bus lines.

22 August: 17 members of the strike committee are terminated without notice. Unknown persons throw bricks at a strike-breaker bus.

23 August: City police write tickets because strikers have set up a small table for collecting signatures in the city centre without permission. The mayor and the Solidarnosc leader meet without a result. MPK's president complains that workers have settled down in front of his office with bricks and cement.

25 August: Another strike-breaker bus is pelted with bricks.

28 August: Loud and angry MPK workers' protest in front of ZTM's downtown offices. ZTM claims that four new companies have assumed Kielce's bus traffic starting on 1 September. ZTM triumphantly claims that Veolia already has 40 applications from drivers, Polski Ekspress even has 60, but these figures smell of bluff again.

29 August 1.19 a.m.: There are about 30 workers occupying the Pakosz operation yard. Most of them sleep in buses or private cars. Suddenly two buses arrive in front of the gate. About 70 security guards in riot gear jump out. The run onto the operation yard, pull sleeping workers out of buses and cars and chase them off the premises - hitting some of them with truncheons. Workers compare this action with police actions during 1980s martial law. The mayor says he ordered the action in order to prevent flammable fluids from catching fire. According to the workers, there are no fuel tanks on the premises. The security guards tell the press they were supposed to prevent a "terrorist arson attack on a bus". More likely, the operation yard and the buses which are parked there were to be handed to the strike-breakers.

8 a.m.: In a co-ordinated action, over a hundred workers storm the operation yard through the main gate and through two other entrances (a side gate and a hole in the fence on the back of the premises). The security guards are completely taken by surprise and flee to the office shack after brief and futile resistance. Meanwhile large numbers of police have been brought in but they only watch and tell the workers to use "no violence". Afterwards, the president of the security company hired for the attack complains to the press that nothing like this has ever happened to him before: to have the police stand aside without supporting him. Nationwide public opinion turns against Kielce's mayor: unions and left-wing groups issue protests, even politicians and media criticise him. National newspapers which have hardly paid any attention to the strike so far turn it into their lead story for the next day. Broadcasting vans with satellite dishes pull up in front of the Pakosz operation yard.

10 a.m.: The voivod holds a press conference and attacks the mayor from behind: "There is still a chance that all MPK workers can keep their jobs."

3 p.m.: The security guards leave the office shack under police protection and the workers' whistles. They enter their buses and leave.

Afternoon: Talks between the mayor and the strike committee. Afterwards, MPK's Solidarnosc leader smiles to the workers: "Everything is going in the right direction." According to him, the mayor has promised that last night's event will not repeated - with two bishops as witnesses.

30 August, 1.19 a.m.: On the operation yard in Pakosz, there are about 70 workers and some left-wing supporters who have come from other cities and have received a friendly welcome after short hesitation (this hadn't been entirely clear considering the cultural gap between 45 year-old catholic mustache wearers and 25 year old antifa dread-lock wearers). Some sleep in buses and cars but most are awake and stand around in groups on the premises, some wielding iron rods.

10 a.m.: Continued talks between mayor and strike committee.

12 a.m.: MPK's Solidarnosc leader has successfully ended talks with the mayor. He jumps out of the car and beams at his workers: "Everything is going in a very good direction." A press conference is being prepared on the outside while the workers meet to discuss and vote in one of the bus hangars. The result seems to be certain in advance.

2 p.m.: The mayor's, voivod's, bishop's and regional Solidarnosc leader's limousines pull up. MPK's president is missing because he has already resigned. Then the result is announced: The strike is over. MPK will not be sold to Veolia but transformed into a "workers' company". According to Polish privatisation law this means that 15 per cent of shares are given to the workers for free and that more shares up to a total of 60 or 70 per cent but at least 51 per cent are sold to them. There is no mention of the price or other details. The mayor takes back the sacking of the strike committee members and the liquidation of the MPK and exclusively contracts the city's bus traffic out to MPK. The workers shout their thanks after the end of the press conference.

A victory for the workers?

It still remains to be seen what this result will mean for them. When I asked a member of the strike committee after the press conference about the wage increases the answer was: "We'll see about that later." The fear of lay-offs due to the Veolia deal is no longer an issue. However, the relation between ZTM and MPK is still an issue. So is the MPK's debt, the need for investment in new buses and general necessities which the self-managed company will now pass on to the workers. There are already some signs of the future atmosphere: MPK's Solidarnosc leader who now sees himself in a responsible position has proposed to treat half of the strike days as unpaid holidays.

Still, this result is a victory. The workers have fought, stuck together and forced the adversary to accept a result which he did not want. If everything had ended with the security guards' attack in the night of 29 August the workers would have had the entire nation's sympathy but they would not have prevailed. By recapturing the operation yard they won back the initiative. Then the mayor (the MPK's acting capitalist) would have had to evict the workers again, and they would have been prepared. He did not have the guts to do that.

On of the reasons was the fact that big politics had already attacked him from behind and withdrawn police protection from him. Poland is facing elections and the ruling PiS party is making a last-minute attempt at looking "social" compared to the the neoliberal opposition. On 29 August, prime minister Kaczyński met Solidarnosc and signed a social agreement. Without even informing the other unions or the employers, the minimum wage was raised by 200 Zl to 1,126, and public sector wages will also be raised. The agreement was explicitly designed to evoke the famous August 1980 agreement between Solidarnosc and the state! This would have been spoiled by a rough police attack on Solidarnosc activists. Instead Kaczyńki chose to rain on the mayor's parade. In the end, the workers will have to pay the bill anyway.

Footnotes:

1 The German press reported extensively as well. It is not clear how many nurses actually participated. According to the union, more than 2,000 participants were registered after the first week. According to a report by Gazeta Wyborcza on 23 June, the police visited hospitals all over Poland on 22 June in order to ask how many nurses had gone to Warsaw or intended to do so.

2 Information about wages varies widely and is sometimes anecdotal. This figure is taken from an interview with an OZZPiP unionist in the Workers' Initiative's current bulletin (ip.hardcore.lt/ip14.pdf). The actual wage depends on a number of factors including years of service and type and location of the hospital. According to Springer's paper Dziennik from 28 August "a nurse in Czętochowa" currently earns 1,729 Zl net.

3 Ogólnopolski Zwiąek Zawodowy Pielęniarek i Połżych (All-Polish Nurses and Midwives Union). It belongs to the third largest union federation Forum Zwiąków Zawodowych. Die OZZPiP's leadership has close personal links to the "post-communist" parties SLD, SdPL and PSL. For an overview over unionism in Poland, see "ArbeiterInnen in Polen seit 1989" in wildcat #74.

4 The following figure may be an indicator for how the relation of production and consumption has reversed: While the number of new cars sold in Poland has been sinking since 1999, the number of new cars produced in Poland has been rising for years. According to the Polish Agency for Information and Foreign Investment (PAIiIZ), in 2005, 235,000 new cars were sold and 527,000 were produced. In 2007, production is expected to 800,000 (Gazeta Wyborcza on 27 August).

5 The OZZPiP argued that the protest was not to be "politicised" in order to keep out left-wing groups' banners and symbols. Some of them therefore came within the ranks of the left-wing Sierpień80 union. An anarchist workshop on non-violent resistance and civil disobedience was prohibited just like the Young Socialists' banner "Yes to wage raises, no to privatisation". Prime minister Kaczyńki claimed that the tent village was infiltrated by "satanists and anarchists" but it was actually very clearly dominated by the OZZPiP.

6 Platforma Obywatelska (Citizens Platform): largest opposition party with a good chance of winning the upcoming elections. Right-wing and national like the governing PiS, but less clericalist and more neoliberal.

7 Internationally as well. A typical example was the "Declaration of solidarity to the striking hospital workers in Poland by the Networking Initiative of the Union Left (IVG), determined on the 9th IVG congress in Stuttgart on 1 July 2007": "The congress of the Networking Initiative of the Union Left with 100 participants shows its solidarity with your strike for a 30 per cent wage raise. (...) Long live international solidarity." (www.labournet.de/internationales/pl/polensoli_ivg.html).

8 For example, in Kostrzyn on the Odra river a bailiff has repeatedly blocked the local hospital's bank accounts, blocking also wage payments to the workers. There have been several union protest demos to the bailiff's office. Meanwhile, the consulting company Deloitte has worked out a restructuring plan which basically proposes to lay off 500 non-doctoral employees. See the image "Patient, let the bailiff cure you. Signed: Politics."

9 Rynek Zdrowia, 13 August 2007.

10 According to the union, this 17 per cent average covers a span from 0 to 40 per cent (interview with the OZZPiP vice president Logina Kaczmarek on 22 August 2007 in Warsaw).

11 See wildcat #78: "Wilde Streiks der Briefträger bei der Polnischen Post".