Shalom! I was a participant of the International Workshop on Trade Unions
in an Era of Privatization and Structure Adjustment, January-February,
1996, at the International Institute - Histadrut, Kfar Saba. I was sent to
this course under the auspices of the Polish Trade Union Agreement "Kadra,"
which is the supervisors', engineers', technicians' staff trade union. It
is not common to organize trade unions for managerial positions. Kadra is
not the largest trade union in Poland, which is the All Poland Trade Union
Alliance, second is "Solidarity," but Kadra brings together the power of
intellect, with its 50,000 members, mostly from heavy industry, especially
coal industry.
In Poland now during transformation, both political (from communism to
democracy) and economic (from central planning to free market economy),
the role of trade unions is still very important. Of course, because of
general stagnancy in the economy we don't need as much steel production,
energy, coal output, also for export. As a result, the government's policy
is to decrease coal output, and several coal mines will be closed down in
the near future. For us, as trade union members, the social problem of
unemployment is most important.
In the case of the coal mine named Zory, where I work as a manager of the
safety, hygiene and instruction division, I can give an example of our
activity. In autumn 1995 this coal mine was privatized - it went from
being a State-owned enterprise to a stock company. The first step of
privatizing such a large enterprise is that 100% of the shares (stock)
belongs to the State Treasury - so the Minister of Trade and Industry was
our general shareholder, and after one year, in August 1996, he decided to
close down our coal mine. As a result of some strikes before and after many
negotiations, the Minister promised the trade union that none of the
ex-miners from our coal mine would loose his work, but would be relocated
to other coal mines in our neighbourhood. Now, after some months, the
number of employees has decreased from over 1,500 to less than 300 and by
the end of September the coal mine will cease all activities. Everybody has
the possibility of a new job, or is allowed to retire early, without full
pension.
I was talking about this situation during our program in Israel (in our
group were 30 participants from 20 countries, mostly Asian and African).
With some of them I still am in contact by letter. One of them, from
Bangladesh, proposed that I come to Dhaka for the annual convention of the
National Food, Hotel and Allied Workers Federation (NFHAF) and share our
Polish experiences, as in the case of Kadra Trade Union, with the trade
union leaders.
In March this year I travelled to Dhaka for 10 days and was well taken care
of by the leaders of NFHAF, and I took part in seminars, speaking about the
situation in Poland after the transformation, about trade union activities
and about health, hygiene and safety problems within many branches such as:
transportation, communication, wooden structures, energy and electrical
supply. The economic situation is very difficult in Bangladesh. It is a
young country, 26 years since independence. There is a lot to do, but
without mutual international help it will be very difficult. One of the
most important is a population problem. About 110 million people live in an
area of approximately 143,000 sq. km. There is a high rate of unemployment
and a large number of homeless people with a high rate of illiteracy.
Another problem is energy. I noticed everyday that electricity was switched
off sometimes for one hour or longer. But in Bangladesh there are layers of
hard coal lignite, oil and gas at the Bay of Bengal. Just now, as the
Polish Ambassador in Dhaka said, the two largest Polish firms in the coal
industry are working there. It will give a chance for development in
various areas, but it will not be very soon. We want cooperation as trade
unionists between Kadra and NFHAF in the future. Last month I wrote an
article for Kadra Magazine about my impressions from Bangladesh, and I
appeal to all institutions, scientific organizations for help in various
areas to Bangladesh under the direction of Kadra and NFHAF.
Finishing I'd like to say that nowadays we should undertake to help each
other. We should do everything for peace also. So, this is the main reason
why I decided to share some of my impressions and reflections with the
Alumni of MASHAV Training Courses, and I'd like to encourage everybody to
act in every possible way and write about it through the pages of Shalom
Magazine.
Sending my best regards to all my friends I met in Israel,
Sincerely yours,
Ryszard Tkocz
ul. Kwiatowa 31
440310 Radlin
POLAND