Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
THE POLITICS OF LABOUR MARKET ADJUST-<br />
MENT IN POST-1989 POLAND<br />
page 146<br />
majority of cases, the coordination, monitoring<br />
of, and information on these legal changes were<br />
carried out by a small legal office responsible<br />
for labour law within the Ministry of Labour<br />
and Social Policy. On the eve of accession,<br />
the last ‘Comprehensive Monitoring Report<br />
on Poland’s preparations for membership’<br />
published by the European Commission in<br />
October 2003, reported two areas where further<br />
attention and action was deemed necessary.<br />
First, it stressed that the combination of high<br />
unemployment and low employment rates<br />
constituted a key economic issue that the<br />
government needed to address. Secondly, the<br />
Commission assessment reported as follows<br />
on the state of legal readiness: ‘Poland’s<br />
Labour Code is only partially aligned with<br />
the acquis on labour law and completion of<br />
transposition must be prioritized. Legislative<br />
alignment still needs to be completed in the<br />
fields of working time (including sectoral<br />
working time), part-time work, transfer of<br />
undertakings and posting of workers’ (EC<br />
2003: 39). Some of these issues were simply<br />
remedied in the law passed in November 2003.<br />
However, since Poland joined the EU in May<br />
2004, the pressure of conditionality and the<br />
objective of accession have disappeared and the<br />
transposition of European norms has become<br />
a more politicized process. This was illustrated,<br />
for instance, by the negotiations surrounding<br />
the drafting of the law on information and<br />
consultation of employees, which<br />
required the design of institutions<br />
for employee representation at the<br />
enterprise level (a particularly salient<br />
issue for unions).<br />
4. POLICY OUTCOMES, EMERGING WELFARE RE-<br />
GIME AND THE POLITICS OF REFORM<br />
For the past twenty years, Polish labour<br />
market policies were being put on the agenda<br />
with varying degrees of priority, introduced,<br />
reformed and fine-tuned. In the early 1990s,<br />
a mix of universal and corporatist features<br />
could be identified: an insurance-based income<br />
replacement scheme with universal eligibility,<br />
but decreasing levels of benefits. In later years,<br />
policies concerning unemployment resemble<br />
those in a minimalist welfare state: more<br />
restrictive eligibility criteria, unemployment<br />
benefits of shorter duration and lower coverage<br />
rate. The social insurance logic is fading and<br />
income support to the unemployed failed to<br />
become a legitimate part of the welfare state.<br />
Unemployment was institutionalized as a<br />
social status giving limited rights while policies<br />
heavily relied on inactivity benefits to ease exits<br />
of the labour market, addressing primarily the<br />
political threat posed by unemployment rather<br />
than seeking to provide a universal support<br />
to alleviate social deprivation associated<br />
with joblessness. In 2002-2004, formal<br />
and discursive compliance with European<br />
guidelines and instruments served to reestablish<br />
labour market policies as a central area<br />
of public policy and triggered a re-orientation<br />
in favour of activation measures. Despite this,<br />
policies addressing labour market risks remain<br />
essentially minimalist and residual; priority was<br />
given to the fight against unemployment, as the<br />
debate on reforming labour law exemplify.<br />
Employment regulation, primarily based on<br />
labour law, was gradually aligned with the<br />
functioning of a capitalist labour market before<br />
encountering the challenge of organising flex-