Protests highlight concerns over workers being left behind

Growing unhappiness among Polish workers has led to a series of protests by Polish unions in recent weeks:

• railway workers took action at the end of July;

• miners and steelworkers protested in August;

• there was a day of action by the ZNP teachers’ union, the largest union in Poland on 1 September; and

• prison officers and staff demonstrated on 9 September.

The culmination is an “All-Polish march of discontent” on 27 September organised by the OPZZ confederation, one of the three main union confederations in Poland.

The precise reasons for unhappiness vary between industries and sectors, but there is a general concern that workers are being left behind.

This is particularly the case in the public sector where a planned 3.0% pay increase has been judged to be too low, not just by unions but employers as well. As Piotr Ostrowski, the president of OPZZ, said in a statement on 2 September, “the government of Donald Tusk and the prime minister himself seem to have forgotten about workers … but we are here to remind him about working people”.

He called for rapid government action, saying “we’ve had enough of waiting”.

FZZ, another union confederation, fears that the protest will continue. Grzegorz Sikora, its spokesperson, pointed out in an interview last month that everyone can see the problems, and that “if they are not resolved in a systematic way the protests will go on”.