Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
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THE POLITICS OF LABOUR MARKET ADJUST-<br />
MENT IN POST-1989 POLAND<br />
business associations that brought together<br />
the Confederation of Polish Employers<br />
(Konfederacja Polskich Pracodawcow – KPP) 21 ,<br />
the Business Centre Club, the Polish Chamber<br />
of Commerce, and the Association of Polish<br />
Artisans, which represented small-sized craft<br />
businesses. This was a well-coordinated effort<br />
benefiting from the administrative support and<br />
technical analysis of the Business Centre Club.<br />
The coalition worked to prepare a detailed<br />
and radical draft bill, aiming to significantly<br />
increase flexibility and reduce labour costs.<br />
Their first proposal was a draft bill focusing on<br />
improving conditions for small and medium<br />
enterprises (SMEs) 22 , a theme to which both<br />
the Freedom Union, the party of Leszek<br />
Balcerowicz, and AWS were attached; but, in<br />
fact, a number of measures adopted within this<br />
frame concerned all enterprises and were aimed<br />
at reforming the labour market in general. The<br />
draft included measures concerning overtime<br />
and fixed-term contracts, which were of<br />
interest to all employers (ibid.: 229-230).<br />
The way in which the bill was presented<br />
largely explains its rejection. Unions saw it as a<br />
provocation. The text had been shown neither<br />
to the government nor to the trade union<br />
Solidarnosc before reaching parliament. It was<br />
discussed only in a specific SME committee, a<br />
favourable audience a priori, but a committee<br />
with no history of passing legislation and no<br />
political weight (ibid.: 232). AWS<br />
and SLD were committed to rejecting<br />
page 140 the proposal. After the SME bill was<br />
rejected in its first parliamentary<br />
reading, business associations and<br />
their political allies turned to a more efficient<br />
active lobbying strategy, i.e. talking to<br />
politicians of the opposite side to see which<br />
elements could become acceptable and trying<br />
to persuade them, lobbying the government<br />
directly and using personal channels rather<br />
than institutional ones (ibid.: 232-234).<br />
In the meantime, a distinct project explicitly<br />
aiming to reform the Labour Code was taking<br />
shape. During the debate on the SME bill,<br />
both left- and right-wing political forces were<br />
publicising proposals concerned with the<br />
duration of the working week and working<br />
time, primarily aiming to satisfy union demands<br />
for a shorter working week. This led to two<br />
draft bills: one from the governing coalition<br />
and one from the opposition, both appearing<br />
sympathetic to unions’ concerns.<br />
The first draft bill was proposed in the Senate<br />
by Solidarnosc and only supported by a faction<br />
of the related political party. It focused on two<br />
measures: reducing the 42-hour working week<br />
to forty hours with no reduction in pay and free<br />
Saturdays in place of old designated free days.<br />
The proposal also included practical provisions<br />
for the implementation of these changes in a<br />
worker-friendly way, and other pro-union or<br />
pro-worker adjustments to regulations (ibid.:<br />
235-236).<br />
The second draft bill was proposed by SLD in<br />
the Sejm. It was supported by the leadership<br />
of the party and was more likely to represent<br />
a compromise between the pro-union and<br />
pro-business factions. The bill ‘was designed<br />
to ensure that AWS could not take the<br />
credit amongst workers, as the party that had<br />
shortened the working week. However, it also<br />
had something to offer employers and was, to<br />
some extent, inspired by the small enterprise<br />
bill. The bill simply declared a 40-hour week