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As new legislation on works councils comes into force in Poland, it becomes more urgent to dispel the myths of the councils and expose how they are promoted by entrepeneurs and the state to further weaken the work force's bargaining power.

For years in Poland (a certain for decades elswhere), workers have had to contend with the compromising attitudes of many unions, especially of those acting through agents of "social partnership". Yet in comparison to the work councils scheme introduced a few years ago in Poland, workers have many more opportunities when forming unions. The work councils sheme offer them practically nothing.

Many unions act in fact as a ventillation valve with their leadership acting to quash rebellion and keep all action within a legal framework. All unions are confined by law into bargaining and strike procedures designed to discourage worker direct action - yet there is resistance to these laws, evidenced by the large number of cases of repression connected with "illegal strikes". The degree of class collaboration, hierarchical leadership and other unfortunate aspects of mainstream unionism does vary. The (legal) option to even hold a strike at all is a right often exercised in this country, despite growing efforts to make such strikes more and more difficult. This is one reason why the state and employers prefer to promote forms of worker representation with even fewer legal rights and which will work in isolation, not in nationwide structures. *

(*The exception in terms of structure would be councils in a European Works Council Scheme.)

The state promoted the idea of work councils claiming that all workers should have representation on the job. Therefore, if there were no unions at the workplace and more than 50 people were employed there, a work council could be set up. (This was supposed to be a mandatory procedure, but due to unclear wording in the law, this may be interpretted differently. There is no clarification given.)

The councils were often set up by the employers themselves. If there was a union functioning in the workplace, they could assign union reps to the council. Some unions thus set up councils so that they would be sure to keep control of worker representation. However this was ruled by the Supreme Court as being "unconstitutional" as a result of a campaign against unionists. The legislation was amended.

The bosses have no interest in any real worker representation or in dealing with demands on a regular basis, therefore they prefer bodies with fewer rights and hope that workers, once convinced that they are "represented", will see no need to join unions. But a quick look at the rights of the councils vs. the rights of unions shows the difference.

Work councils may:

- Have access to information about the activity and economic situation of the employer and any changes that may occur in them.
- Have access to the state and structure of employment and any changes predicted regarding this or any actions with an aim to maintaining the level of employment.
- Be infomed of activities which may cause changes in the organization of work or employment.
- Consult on the state and structure of employment or activities which may cause changes in the organization of work.

Unions can:

- Consult and give an opinion on any terminations
- Negotiate severance and redundancy packages
- Negotiate pay, work conditions, collective agreements
- Negotiate accounting periods
- Negotiate which work requires extra safety measures or needs to be paid extra for safety reasons
- Organize drinks and meals for workers in certain positions
- Protest unfair dismissals and disciplinary fines
- Negotiate work and vacation schedules
- Oversee the social funds and control how money is spent
- Send a unionist on a delegation or to do union business during working hours and have a union representative at the workplace, employed full-time only on union work,if a union represents over 150 employees
- Obtain space at the work place for carrying out union activity (ie a union office)
- Collect dues
- Go into collective bargaining
- Hold a strike
- Collect strike funds, hire and provide legal council
- Organize workers into various industrial, regional and national branch organizations
- Negotiate work conditions throughout a sector, nationwide in a given company
- Provide support on a larger scale in case of conflict / strike
- Negotiate the terms of privatization

In addition, union reps are protected against discrimination or termination related to performing their functions (although in practice bosses frame them for other infractions to get rid of them anyway).

It is clear from this list that the role of work councils is limited in comparison with unions. In addition, it should be noted that unions may include regulations in their statutes which allow the rank and file more democratic control over the union and their representatives than they could have with the councils.
For example, in a union, certain decisions could require a vote of all local union members or the decision of a local branch meeting. This depends of the statute of the union and the amount of rank-and-file democracy it implements. However, work council reps make decisions themselves and have no legal requirement to consult with the workers.

The representatives of the work councils, which is funded by the boss, decides wth the boss how information is to be obtained and how they will be informed. If the workers do not agree with the boss on how elections to the work councils should be held, the boss is allowed to decide that. In practice, many work councils have been set up by the bosses.

If 50% of the eligible work force does not vote in the work council elections, a new election can be held 30 days later which will be valid no matter how many people take part in it. Thus a work council can be elected by even one person, if for some reason people don't vote. The term of the representatives is 4 years long.
The work council representatives, not the workers, decide on how they will work and who their chairperson will be.
Besides these problems related to lack of worker control over the councils, there is a problem even with the limited rights the work councils are purported to have. It is clear that the main right the councils have is to obtaining "information". Yet the act on works councils clearly states that the boss does not have to supply any information that it considers a commercial secret. And in Poland, the definition of "commerical secret" is vaguely defined and usually interpreted very broadly. Thus employers usually maintain that information on the value of some contracts, on salaries and even the profits of a company are commerical secrets.

An employer may also refuse to give information if this would "act to the detriment of the company's best interests".

In practice, work councils that want information often have to go to court to get it. There have been dozens of cases already since the introduction of work councils in 1996.

(It should be noted that court proceedings are long in Poland and cases can take many months before even getting to court. )

So what is it that the councils are entitled to get information on? Well, they can find out if the company is planning on conducting group dismissals - but there is nothing they can do about it. (They are not entitled to know about individual dismissals, unlike unions.)

Unions also have bullshit legal entitlements. For example, they may not agree that a worker be fired and the bosses can do it anyway. However, where unions are more independent of the bosses and have a stronger class character and idea of workers solidarity, they have a much wider scope for action.

The councils are clearly being promoted as part of a more pernicious social policy which is common around Europe. The cheerleaders of "social consultation" schemes try to convince working people of all the legal rights they have as a deradicalizing measure to obfuscate the reality of the class struggle. The councils narrow down the relation between workers and employers and discourage independent worker organization.

We call on workers not to be taken in by either the false consulatative nature of the councils, nor the class collaborationist and hierarchical unions. We need to foster a more critical rejection of the process of social partnership, which always is used to bolster the logic of capitalism.

Class consciousness is quite low in Poland these days, but work conditions are so poor for so many that, despite this, tens of thousands of people strike each year to win some improvements to their material conditions. We believe that ultimately, this is accomplished mainly through a high degree of self-organization or through radical workers' action. In the current situation, many workers lack tactics and the will for effective mass action. Thus the state attack on unions, realized through legislative means and unfavourable court decisions attacking organized labour, threatens to further weaken the unions, but does not mean that their weakening will open new opportunities for worker radicalism. Rather, the rechanneling of the workforce into councils only promises further deradicalization. In such a situation, we generally prefer unions to councils although we do are not fooled by the efforts of some unions to reorganize unionism in Poland into the playing field of a few giant central organizations. These organizations have already proven that, instead of providing increased "bargaining power" as they claim, they tend to concentrate power in the hands of the most moderate.

Radicalization will be a difficult road, but one best accomplished through the collective efforts of the rank-and-file, not through the bureaucrats and class collaborators.

Akai