There can't be a serious discussion about the law about workers' boards without reminding that the system of work based on workers' councils was the main postulate of striking working crews during the polish revolution in 1980 and 1981. During the period of transformation (1989) a movement of "partnership groups" was still strong, this movement's aim was to introduce autonomous workers' teams. The intention of self-governing movement was not only to introduce solutions profitable for the economy but also broadly understood so-called humanization of working environment what is possible only after making the crews parts of the governing ones. Political elites have chosen a neoliberal variant of transformation, being in contrast with the postulates of workers' movement. The effect is that today 2/3 employers don't keep to the terms and sums of salaries and more than a half don't respect the norms of working time - according to the statistics of National Inspection of Work. In most plants, especially in private ones, the workforce doesn't have its represantives. Only 14 % employed people belong to trade unions, and in some lines such as trade, services or construction industry the level of people involved in trade unions is only about several percent. Considering also that a lot of trade unions are corrupt and are voicing only their employers needs. Since 2002 we were witnesses to many exapmles of illegal or half-legal actions of many managements of private and national plants. In Szczecin's Shipyard, in Uniontex, Ozarow and in many different plants there have been violations of law that harmed the plants and the employees working there. Can we hope that workers' boards chosen in secret and direct elections will be able to avoid many irregularities and to protect many plants from unexplained bacruptcy and therefore losses of work places?

Businessmen's gripes that they will have to (in small extent) share their power in enterprise with the workers are pathetic and show the real premises of their actions. The aim is to keep the situation going when the workforce is weak towards their employer and can be easily exploited: don't be paid, be fooled, be robbed and be dissmissed. Attentive political commentators have already sterted writing commentaries against the law about workers' boards. All the more workers environment should unanimously opt for the law, demand records most profitable for the workers and try very hard to let the information reach wide audience of society.

Wednesday, 4.08.2004,/pap-polish press agency/
Workers' boards will be set up in plants

Due to the project of law "About information and consultation with the workers", which is to be placed by the government to Parliament by the government, workers' boards will be set in companies employing more than 20 people.

Even in the biggest enterprises the boards won't be bigger than 5 people - vice-minister of economy Piotr Kulpa informed PAP on Tuesday.

Workers' boards are to be set in firms always by the lowest costs for the companies. Kulpa said that eg. workers chosen to the boards will not be able to get leaves from work for the activity of the board.

The representative of employees would get information from the firm's management about eg. condition of employment in the plant, the plan of dissmissals, organizational changes and about the subject of plant's activity.

Kulpa added that if the management came to a conclusion that they can't share those information, they would be able to deny to share it. That decision will, however, be able to be appealed against to the court that would decide whether to share this information with the workers' board.
Kulpa emphasized that participants of workers' boards would not be allowed to share those information further under threat.

Vice-minister added that due to the project in enterprises employing from 20 to 100 people workers would have only one representative. In bigger companies employing from 100 to 300 people the boards would be contained of 3 people and in companies employing more than 300 - they would be contained of 5 people. The candidates will be proposed by the trade unions and if there are no trade unions in the plant - the employees will do that themselves.

"The size of the board will not depend on how many plants or departments the enterprise has. And it's not like that that every plant will have its workers' board" - Kulpa said.
He added that contrary to the information given by the press the project doesn't say that the workers' boards will be able to negotiate the collective agreement. The right to do that belongs only to trade unions and employers.

The Whole-polish Agreement of Trade Unions (OPZZ) in statement sent to PAP protested "against methods of social dialogue used by the Ministry of Economy and Work (MGiP) ruled by the vice-Prime Minister Jerzy Hausner, the chairman of Tripartite Comission (TK).

According to OPZZ's annoucement the chairman of this trade union Jan Guz during the Comission's session on 6 July 2004 asked the chairman of TK Jerzy Hausner in the name of OPZZ "whether in MGiP there are some researches about the project of the law that is about setting up plants' boards or workers' boards in economical entities and if so it should be a subject of dialogue in the stage of premises in appropetiate teams in TK".

The answer, according to the statement, reads as follows: "There are researches about the law that reults from the laws about european companies that means those according to workers' consultation and participation; in those researches we consider the possiblility as a form of workers' consultation and participation - the workers' boards, we will subject the project of this law to assesment in a team of social dialogue because that is the proper forum for that. When we are ready it will of course go through the ordinary agreement procedure. We will not press it forcefully, I want to emphasize that we will not press the solutions that we proposed (�)".

"On 3 August 2004 in "Gazeta Wyborcza" there was an article "Workers' boards come back thanks to EU" from which we find out that the Ministry of Economy and Work has a ready project of the law about workers' boards" - it was emphasized in the statement of OPZZ. "We were to have a dialogue about the workers' boards with TK and its teams and we will get a ready project in a course of article 19 of law about trade unions' law" - it was written in the document.