poland taken.
1•GIEREK
FACES
WORKERS
SELF-
MANAGEMENT by JULIAN NAT
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VS. the workers "In conformity with the will of the workers, which has been expressed in all the meetings, open to all workers, that have been held in the departments, we demand immediate and legal elections to the trade-union bodies and to the workers councils." That was one of the demands presented by the workers of the Szczecin shipyards to their "hosts" on January 24, 1970. The first secretary of the Polish United Workers party (the Polish CP) did not hesitate to respond: "As for me, 1 am absolutely in favor of this. Because you want it. And remember that." And it is remembered; people would like to understand through what miracle the Polish bureaucracy could have ceded a bit of its power to workers democracy. In fact, this was not the first time since 1945 that the Polish bureaucracy had made fine promises. After the war Between August 1944 and March 1945 the trade unions were organizing on all levels, especially in those factories that had had rich traditions of economic struggle before the war. For a period of several weeks before the official regime in the country had been fully established, factory committees and rank-and-file union organizations assured the administration and functioning of the factories. The 1945 decree on the formation of factory committees simply sanctioned an already existing state of affairs. As the bureaucratic regime became stronger, the trade unions progressively lost their importance and
became mere adjuncts of the state administration. Similarly, in 1947 and 1948 there was a turn in trade-union activity that led to an exaggerated definition of the role of the trade unions as "coproducers" and instruments for mobilizing the masses to increase production and the productivity of labor, to the detriment of their role as spokesman for the immediate interests of the workers. The bureaucracy then asserted that the trade unions "should understand that the councils (that is, the factory committees) represent not simply the interests of the workers, but also the interests of the national economy." October 1956 The workers revolt in Poznan in 1956 provided striking evidence of the profound malaise of the bureaucratic regime. The workers of Poznan had elected representatives outside the official trade-union bodies to present their point of view to the authorities in Warsaw, thus confirming the official unions' loss of prestige. The unions, entirely subordinated to the party and to the imperatives of production, had "long since ceased to represent and defend the interests of the workers, " affirmed the resolution of the plenary session of the trade unions (held November 16-18, 1956). Another phenomenon a iso came to the surface during the events of 1956: The workers councils, created by the workers themselves, were rapidly spreading as a counter to the dilution and degeneration of the so-called socialist system prevailing in the "people's democracy. " These councils should have
POZNAN 1956 provided the means for reestablishing the dictatorship of the proletariat in the real sense. Given the atmosphere of struggle against the bureaucracy in political, economic, and social life, the constitution of the workers councils could have created the framework for workers democracy. The workers councils experienced a period of "ebb" between 1956 and June 1957. Then they were "stabilized" and their place in the economic life of the country was narrowed and made more and more formal. The existence of the workers councils was legalized in November 1956, another case of sanctioning an already accomplished fact, as in 1945 with the factory committees. But it quickly became clear that the bureaucrats did not intend to recognize the real participation of the councils in economic decision making, a participation that was nevertheless inherent in the dynamic of the movement. In 1958, the regime sought to channel the development of the councils through the creation of the Conferences of Workers Autonomy, which were set up in the factories and were composed of one-third representafives elected by the workers (the workers council properly so called), one-third representatives of the party executive committee in the factory, and the rest representatives of the factory trade-union council, the youth organization, and the organization of engineers and technicians. Logically, it would seem that the workers representation should have been greater in the workers councils, at least in view of the name of these bodies. But here are the official figures: About 90, 000 employees participated in the workers councils, of which about 40, 000 were blue-collar workers (the percentage
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POLAND ranging from 49% to 64%, depending on the coun cil); in the presidium of the workers councils the workers representation was about 20-40 percent. The role of the Conferences of Workers Autonomy, which hod limited responsibilities and were subordinated to the degenerated trade-unions and the party, was restricted to inspecting the administration of the factories and the working conditions. While the opportunities for the workers' taking initiatives on questions of management disappeared little by little, the trade-union councils concentrated more and more on controlling production; they ignored the defense of the interests of the wage earners (wages, working conditions, etc.). Composed in large part of "professional activists, " some workers councils were limited to ratifying projects and decisions of the management. The representation of the workers was only symbolic. December 1970 In 1970 and 1971 during the repeated strikes along the Baltic coast and in other places throughout Poland, the workers struggled for unions that would be representative and independent of the regime and for real workers councils holding power. Let us quote an example from a declaration made after December 1970: "Behind the 'workers' facade we often find a narrow group of specialists and official representatives of social organizations. It is the same thing in the Commission on Problems of the Workers Councils. Workers participation is minimal. For example, in one factory that was looked into of the twenty-five members of the commission only one is a worker. This business could be turned into a joke — How many of you are there? One! - if it were not such a serious thing and no laughing matter. It is this small group of specialists that, acting under the aegis of the workers council, carries out the leading functions in the administration of the factory and settles all problems that come up. That is the truth of the matter. There are some paradoxical situations; for example, a division head who as a member of the commission of the workers council has to check on the very activity for which he is responsible in his capacity of functionary in the factory management. If to this it is added that the marials presented to the workers councils are in gene al provided by the members of the management or o the division heads, the image becomes clear. Often, workers autonomy is no more than a phrase. " In another article written during this period, a journalist quoted some statements made by the workers of the Gdansk and Gdynia shipyards after their meeting with Gierek: * "What did the supervisory personnel have to say? 18
They only listened to us when we took action. " *"You ask me about our workers councils? I know nothing about its members. I couldn't even name one of them. They exist only on paper." *"If's the same with the trade union. Sure . . . there's recreation, loans, and so on. But on the most important questions it's never around." * "When it all started, they all disappeared. We wanted to speak, but there was no one to listen. We stood in front of the headquarters and called for someone to come out and see us. Everyone hid, the factory committee, the workers council, and our trade-union leaders. " In 1970, as during the spontaneous movement for the creation of the workers councils in 1956, the workers armed themselves with democratic organizations intended to make up for the deficiencies of the official organizations. This capacity for selforganization, as well as the other characteristics of the movement of December 1970 and January 1971, illustrated what some people have called the contradiction "between the growing maturity of the working class and the underdevelopment of socialist democracy. " An inquiry conducted in 1971 by the Polish weekly Polityka revealed that 90 percent of the workers questioned were conscious of the total ineffectiveness of their representatives and stated that these representatives hod no influence whatever over the management of the factory. The basic thrust of the demands raised by the strike committee in the Szczecin shipyards was toward the democratization of the structures of power and of the economy, in addition to improvements in living standards and working conditions. The committee demanded real independence for the workers organizations, notably through the resignation of the discredited leaders of the Central Trade Union Council and the construction of trade-unions independent of the regime and controlled by the unionized workers themselves. Response of the Gierek team In the wake of the events of December 1970 a debate took place once again over the problem of forms of representation and participation of the workers in the management of the economy. This debate drew a new balance-sheet on the functioning of the existing bodies: the unions, the workers councils, and the Conferences of Workers Autonomy. Some proposals were made in 1971 and 1972 that stressed a new division of responsibilities, with an increase in the powers granted the workers council on the questions of employment and division of wages -powers distinct from those of the unions, whose role