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A few weeks ago I wrote here (in Polish) about how few firms qualify for state aid in the framework of the so-called "anti-crisis package". The anti-crisis package was a serious of measure adopted which dealt a harsh blow to workers rights and meant to lower their guarantees duing the times of crisis. Although this was originally supposed to be limited to firms hit by the crisis, the Act was changed so that all firms could qualify for introducing worse working conditions.

The "social partners" also loudly announced that there would be financial aid for those businesses that experienced a 25% drop in production or turnover. This aid was to be used, among other things, to pay for workers to go on training, or get subsidized payment, instead of being fired.

So far, only ONE firm has received this state aid. Experts claim that this is because very few Polish firms actually had such a slump during the crisis. In fact, many economic indicators were up last year and this year, including a growth in the GDP.

The one really bad indicator? That scores of people have lost their jobs. But what is bad for the workers, sometimes produces economic "growth" - at least in the statistics.

Only 29 businesses applied for state aid and of those, only 26 were considered. The government meant this aid to bailout large workplaces - but did not specify the size of the company in the qualifying criteria. That is why the overwhelming majority of companies that applied for state aid employed only 5-10 people.

The TriPartite Commission discussed this. The "social partners" think that the qualifying level should be lowered, so that firms which have lower levels of loss could take the taxpayers money.