Polish trade unions and social dumping debates

Abstract

German

French

This article examines the stances of Polish trade unions on EU enlargement, intra-EU labour mobility and EU service market liberalization. It shows that, despite the liberal rhetoric embraced by mainstream media and successive Polish governments, the country’s labour organizations did not lend their support to the logic of low-cost competitiveness. The article accounts for this stance by referring to the insider-outsider theorem. It argues that whereas transnationally mobile workers and self-employed individuals (the ‘outsiders’) could make use of short-term cost advantages, the domestic workforce (the ‘insiders’) benefited from the gradual improvement of employment conditions in Poland and their convergence with western standards. The desire to cater to the interests of the insiders made the unions reject social dumping and defend the west European social ‘archetype’ to which their countrymen aspired.

Keywords

Trade unions social dumping EU eastern enlargement labour mobility

Introduction

The EU accession of 10 Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries¹ was approved in the late 1990s at the Helsinki and Luxembourg European Council meetings. While these decisions marked the symbolic end of half a century of a divided Europe, they also raised concerns about the socio-economic impact of the forthcoming enlargement. In particular, it was feared that companies and workers from ‘new’ EU Member States would seek to circumvent west European social regulations, and to use lower levels of wages and social protection to gain a competitive advantage on the European market. Such strategies, referred to as social dumping, had the potential to spur a pan-European ‘race to the bottom’ in the social field, imperilling jobs and working conditions in ‘old’ EU Member States (Vaughan-Whitehead, 2003; Marginson, 2006).

In the pre-accession period, the above concerns extended to the sphere of industrial relations. Given the pro-capitalist stance of CEE trade unions in the initial phase of the transition process, CEE factor endowments and high unemployment rates in the ‘new Europe’, there was a risk that organized labour in the post-communist region would lend support to the logic of cost competitiveness, viewing lower wage levels and inferior working conditions as legitimate means of attracting foreign business and ‘exporting’ workers and service providers to high-income ‘old’ EU Member States. Did these initial fears materialize? In particular, did CEE trade unions endorse or reject social dumping strategies, and what accounts for the policy course they chose to follow?

Addressing the above questions, this article reconstructs the stances of Polish labour organizations on three areas that gave rise to social dumping concerns in ‘old’ EU Member States: EU eastern enlargement, intra-EU labour mobility and EU service market liberalization. The analysis shows that the unions in question condemned social dumping from the very outset of EU eastern enlargement, instead advocating a steady convergence of employment conditions towards west European standards. The article accounts for the unions’ stance by referring to the insider logic of trade union action. It argues that whereas short-term cost advantages would potentially be used by ‘outsiders’, i.e. non-unionized transnationally mobile workers and self-employed individuals, ‘the insiders’, i.e. the domestic workforce comprising current and potential union members, benefited from the gradual improvement of their working conditions. The latter scenario was conditional on maintaining west European wage levels and working conditions as a frame of reference, and thus required the rejection of the social dumping logic. The article also asserts that union criticism of ‘competitiveness at all costs’ has influenced Polish public debates on labour standards and provided a basis for cross-border union alliances.

The article is based on internal union documents and official statements on EU-related issues, collected by the author during her visits to OPZZ and Solidarność headquarters and her three-week research stay in the Solidarność archive in Gdańsk. It also uses information obtained from interviewed representatives of the two confederations and sector-level organizations in the construction industry. These data are triangulated with Polish and international media reports on topics and events discussed in the article.

The article is structured as follows. Section one operationalizes the concept of social dumping and outlines social dumping concerns voiced in west European public discourses. Section two presents arguments suggesting that CEE union preferences in terms of the extent of liberalization of intra-EU labour and capital flows could diverge from those of their west European counterparts. Section three presents Polish labour organizations’ discourses and policies on EU enlargement, intra-EU labour mobility, employee posting and EU service market liberalization. Section four accounts for the anti-dumping position of the unions and advocates closer cooperation among trade unions in Europe in combating rule evasion.

EU eastern enlargement and social dumping fears

Regulations constitute an important element of capitalist market construction. They prevent market participants from undertaking inefficient and socially harmful activities encouraged by market rivalry (Frank, 2011), limit the scope for predatory and rent-seeking behaviour, and compensate for information asymmetries. Legislation in the social sphere – a subset of market regulations – protects society and workers from excessive exposure to market forces while also possibly enhancing firms’ performance by fostering long-term trust relationships both inside and outside the company (Streeck, 1997). Even so, individual market players forced to act according to the short-term market logic tend to view rules governing the market, including those in the social sphere, as barriers to profit maximization. Instead of internalizing such ‘constraints’, they have an incentive to ignore them or to adjust them to serve their needs. Undertaken with the aim of gaining a competitive advantage, the resulting practices undermining or ‘bending’ existing social regulations can be conceptualized as social dumping (Bernaciak, 2015).

Tensions between social regulations and short-term benefits related to rule evasion are inherent to the capitalist system of production and accumulation. This implies that social dumping is a universal phenomenon, practised by different players in a variety of market settings. In the European context, however, social dumping pressure became particularly pronounced in the late 1990s, with the prospective EU accession of 10 CEE countries. In view of considerable differences in wage and social protection levels between east and west Europe, EU eastern enlargement was expected to provide market participants with new incentives and opportunities to circumvent social standards.

On the eve of EU eastern enlargement, CEE candidate countries were much poorer than their EU counterparts, with average GDP per capita at PPS reaching just 45 per cent of the EU average (Krings, 2009). With the exception of the Czech Republic and Romania, they also had lower activity rates than western European countries, and unemployment figures were higher. As for earnings, gross annual wages at PPS across the post-communist region remained below EU-15 standards: in 1999, Slovenia reached 71 per cent and Bulgaria just 22 per cent of the EU average (Kunz, 2002). Fragile tripartite structures, politicized and divided trade union movements, and the half-hearted adoption of the EU social acquis further added to the bleak picture. Against this background, a number of industrial relations practitioners, politicians and pundits in ‘old’ EU Member States expressed doubts as to whether CEE candidate countries were ready to join the EU, and whether ‘the scale of the gap in labour costs and incomes, combined with the flexible labour market regimes embraced by most countries in the [CEE] region’ would not lead to ‘widespread social dumping’ (Marginson, 2006: 3). Three specific concerns were raised in this regard.

First, lower CEE wage standards and lax labour regulations were expected to serve as a magnet for foreign direct investment (FDI), spurring a wave of company relocations from west to east. Fears of délocalisation were particularly pronounced in France, where both left- and right-wing politicians pleaded for the ‘upward harmonization’ of social standards in the enlarged EU; the Socialist Party went as far as to advocate a European minimum wage to avoid CEE-prompted job losses and social dumping (Clift and Howarth, 2010). Similar concerns were voiced in other countries whose companies had invested heavily in the post-communist region. Bohle’s (2008) study of Germany shows that even though the extent of relocation-induced job losses remained relatively low, the concentration of such practices in specific sectors, as well as widely publicized large-scale relocation cases, raised public anxiety over industry’s possible Drang nach Osten. In a poll conducted in 2004, 73 per cent of Germans feared losing their job as a result of the enlargement (Barysch, 2005).

Secondly, ‘old’ EU Member States were also wary of the influx of labour migrants from the poorer accession states. Trade unions in Germany and Austria – traditional migration destinations for east Europeans – were particularly worried in this respect, fearing that CEE newcomers would work for less than the domestic workforce and thus undermine existing collectively agreed norms and employment standards. Germany’s construction union IG BAU was also afraid of an increase in the unemployment rate induced by the post-accession CEE migrant flows, arguing that: ‘[t]ens of thousands of people working in forestry and gardening, in waste management and in agriculture, as well as in the construction industry, have already lost their jobs; these were taken over – often on an illegal basis – by migrant workers coming predominantly from the neighbouring east European states’ (IG BAU, 2000). Concerns over post-enlargement labour migration flows made the Austrian union confederation ÖBG suggest that the Austrian market should remain closed to CEE firms and workers until the post-socialist states had reached 80 per cent of Austrian per capita GDP (Duszczyk and Poprzęcki, 2000). IG BAU similarly joined forces with construction industry business associations, lobbying for a 10-year postponement of CEE firms and workers’ access to the German market. In December 2000, German Chancellor Schröder took the social partners’ position into account, proposing a flexible scheme of 3+2+2 year transition periods, leaving the decision on their imposition to individual EU Member States. On adoption of the proposal at European level in May 2001, Germany and Austria opted for the longest, seven-year market access restriction for CEE workers (Bohle and Husz, 2003).

Thirdly, in contrast to labour mobility, cross-border service provision was generally not subject to temporary restrictions. This meant that after 1 May 2004 CEE companies could offer their services in other EU national markets and post their workers abroad to perform work-related activities. A normative basis for intra-EU employee posting was established by the 1996 Posted Workers Directive (PWD), which stipulated that wages and working conditions of posted workers had to comply with the minimum standards of the country where the service was provided (Cremers et al., 2007). Despite these safeguards, some observers in ‘old’ EU Member States nevertheless feared that CEE posting companies might try to circumvent national labour market rules. Guided by these concerns, Germany and Austria introduced temporary restrictions on CEE service providers operating in construction-related industries (Bohle and Husz, 2003). Further controversies in the area of cross-border service provision were spurred by the European Commission’s draft EU Services Directive presented in January 2004. This included the so-called country of origin principle, under which an individual or a company would be allowed to provide services on the territory of another EU Member State on the basis of the laws and regulations of his/her country of origin or country of establishment. Even though PWD provisions were not to be directly affected by the new rule, the enforcement of host country minimum standards would nevertheless be seriously hindered due to planned limitations on host state controlling rights. All in all, the draft Directive was perceived by west European trade unions as a threat to national wage standards and collective bargaining arrangements. In their view, it could spur a pan-European ‘race to the bottom’ in the sphere of wages and working conditions, prompted by letter-box companies that would relocate their headquarters to states offering the lowest social conditions and subsequently expand their operations to other EU countries (ETUC, 2004; EMCEF, 2004; IG BAU, 2005). The unions and their European federations staged protest actions against the draft Directive and lobbied the European Parliament to amend the proposed act.

CEE unions as ‘agents of liberalization’?

Throughout the 1990s, CEE employment relations remained to a large extent terra incognita for west European observers. Even though the new millennium provided first – and sometimes contradictory – accounts of tripartite dialogue (see e.g. Iankova, 2000; Ost, 2000) and union organizational structures in post-socialist countries (Pollert, 1999; Vickerstaff and Thirkell, 2000; Crowley and Ost, 2001), many details related to the functioning of organized interest representation in the region remained unknown. In particular, it was unclear whether CEE unions would take a social course during the EU integration process or rather act as ‘agents of liberalization’, viewing lower employment standards as a competitive advantage in the process of their countries acceding to the EU.

The above concern was not entirely groundless in view of the initial endorsement given by CEE labour organizations to their countries’ liberal reform course. Newly created trade unions, set in their opposition to the socialist order, were openly pro-capitalist and often acted as ‘managers of change’ in their respective countries (Pollert, 1999: 217). The case of the Polish Solidarność – the biggest anti-communist workers’ organization in the CEE region – is particularly instructive in this regard. In the first years following the systemic change, part of its leadership would endorse economic reforms that were socially detrimental to labour; even its long-time leader Lech Wałęsa argued that ‘we cannot have a strong trade union until we have a strong economy’ (Tygodnik Solidarność, quoted in Ost, 2005: 53). Guided by the same logic, plant-level union officials would often accept restructuring drives at their plants, considering them as a necessary element of production ‘rationalization’ (Ost, 2002). Old ‘reformed’ labour organizations in CEE, for their part, struggled to break with the ‘transmission belt’ legacy, finding it difficult to reform their structures to engage in collective bargaining (Seideneck, 1993). In the political sphere, they tended to side with ‘reformed’ left-wing parties which often proved as eager as their right-wing counterparts to liberalize post-socialist economies.

The adverse social consequences of pro-market reforms called for a new growth strategy. Privatization and restructuring programmes launched across the post-socialist region in the early phase of the systemic transformation often entailed the downsizing or closure of large state-owned enterprises. Faced with rapidly growing unemployment, CEE countries needed new sources of capital to boost their economies. Against this background, one could expect that CEE labour organizations might support lower standards and inferior working conditions to attract foreign investment, and/or as a factor enabling CEE workers and companies to enter western European markets. As a corollary, any efforts to raise standards or to provide a common European ceiling for employment conditions could be ‘perceived by workers and trade unions from the poorer states as a protective measure promoted by their counterparts from richer countries’ (Streeck, 1998: 146).

Finally, the potential support of CEE unions for the liberal path of EU integration could be inferred from trade economics. In particular, one could expect that the reactions of specific production factor owners to the eastern extension of the EU Internal Market would be similar to those accompanying international trade liberalization. According to the Stolper-Samuelson (Stolper and Samuelson, 1941) theorem, increasing trade exposure benefits the owners of abundant factors of production and hurts the owners of the scarce ones. Consequently, the former will support trade liberalization, whereas the latter will call for protectionist measures. In view of the initial factor endowments of the post-socialist economies, abundant in labour but scarce in capital, local workers and their organizations were likely to support the liberalization of intra-EU trade. In line with Rogowski’s (1989) account of coalitions emerging in reaction to the changing terms of trade, there was also potential for a more or less explicit alliance between CEE labour and west European capital owners – the holders of abundant production factors in the context of EU enlargement. The potential for such unusual cross-class coalitions was also highlighted by Meardi (2002).

Trade union rhetoric: social dumping versus ‘race to the top’

This section confronts the expectations that CEE labour organizations would support low-cost strategies with their actual stances on issues causing social dumping concerns in ‘old’ EU Member States: EU eastern enlargement, intra-EU labour mobility and EU service market liberalization. The account focuses on Solidarność and OPZZ, Poland’s biggest trade union confederations, and, where applicable, on two construction sector organizations affiliated to them: Solidarność’s Sectoral Branch for the Construction Industry and ZZ Budowlani. Poland is selected because it is the biggest and most populous new EU Member State; since 2004, it has also seen a large share of its working population migrating to the west. The building industry is exposed to strong competitive pressure and considered particularly prone to rule evasion (Bosch and Zühlke-Robinet, 2000; Cremers, 2011).

EU eastern enlargement

Solidarność and OPZZ supported Poland’s EU accession, viewing it as a natural course of events in light of the country’s 1000-year political, economic and cultural presence in Europe. Pro-European sentiments were particularly strong at Solidarność, which had already forged close links with west European labour movements under the communist regime. It applied for ETUC membership as early as the mid-1980s, but the request was declined as at that time the ETUC would not accept members from outside the European Economic Community. It ended up joining the confederation in 1995, after a change in the latter’s membership policy (Degryse and Tilly, 2013). OPZZ followed suit in 2006, but it officially voiced its support for Poland’s EU integration much earlier, during a Special Congress held in October 2000 (OPZZ, 2000). In the run-up to the Polish accession referendum, both its Women’s Committee and regional leaders appealed to rank-and-file union members to vote in favour of accession.

Both confederations became actively involved in EU accession negotiations. OPZZ participated in the workings of the Polish Liaison Committee for Cooperation with the European Economic and Social Committee, while Jan Kułakowski, the former Solidarność representative in Brussels, became Poland’s Chief Negotiator of Poland’s Accession to the EU (Meardi, 2002). Solidarność insisted that workers’ representatives should be consulted on issues related to the implementation of EU social legislation and labour market reforms preceding the country’s EU accession, and voiced its dissatisfaction when the extent of such consultations did not meet its expectations (Solidarność, 1999a, 2001a). Sectoral trade unions closely monitored the progress of negotiations in their respective areas, making sure that the interests of their industries were adequately represented during the talks. ZZ Budowlani, for instance, urged the government to renegotiate provisions concerning the post-accession increase of VAT for certain building activities.

Union enthusiasm for Poland’s EU accession does not mean that they lent their support to the liberal vision of EU integration, and they viewed rule circumvention as a potential competitive factor. Quite the contrary, they considered enlargement as a chance to strengthen employment rights and improve the material status of Polish workers. In its 1999 statement, Solidarność appealed to the Polish authorities to treat the social dimension of EU integration as equally important to other – political and economic – areas. It also urged the ETUC and old EU Member State governments to put pressure on Poland to implement all provisions of the EU social acquis before EU accession (Solidarność, 1999a). OPZZ, for its part, saw Poland’s EU accession as an opportunity for achieving ‘societal progress, economic development, and for catching up in the social sphere with EU-15 countries’ (OPZZ, 2003). In his speech on 1 May 2004 marking Poland’s EU accession, OPZZ President Jan Guz expressed a wish that ‘Social Europe’ would cater for ‘fair and regularly paid wages’ and be ‘free from poverty (…) and social exclusion’; he also pledged to defend the social vision of EU integration ‘together with workers and their trade unions from other EU countries’ (OPZZ, 2004). All in all, rather than seeking to undermine west European standards, the Polish trade unions hoped that, as a result of EU enlargement, similar conditions would soon be enjoyed by their fellow citizens.

Intra-EU labour mobility

On the eve of EU eastern enlargement, both trade union confederations criticized the planned imposition of transition periods limiting the access of CEE labour to west European labour markets. According to Solidarność (2001a), such regulations were discriminatory and contradicted the spirit of EU integration, ‘leading to the treatment of our [Polish] employees as “second class workers”’. OPZZ similarly argued that the temporary restrictions introduced an element of asymmetry into the EU enlargement process: in view of Poland’s negative trade balance with ‘old’ EU Member States and the limited extent of pre-accession financial assistance, the closure of EU labour markets implied a serious breach of EU solidarity, undertaken ‘in response to German and Austrian fears’ (OPZZ, 2001). German unions’ decision to support the labour market restrictions indeed departed from a joint declaration issued in March 1999 by Solidarność President Marian Krzaklewski and his DGB counterpart Dieter Schulte, in which the two leaders pledged not to support the extension of the EU Internal Market to the east if the free movement of labour principle was not safeguarded (DGB and Solidarność, 1999). Commenting on the change of mind on the part of his west European counterparts, the President of Solidarność’s Sectoral Branch for the Construction Industry viewed the temporary closure of EU labour markets for CEE citizens as an attempt to construct ‘a new Berlin Wall along the River Oder’ (SC, in 2005).

According to the Polish unions, the transition periods were not only unjust but also economically unsound. In Solidarność’s view, their imposition would slow down the convergence of wages and living standards between ‘old’ and ‘new’ EU Member States, thus encouraging rule evasion and social dumping. The union argued that lower standards in the CEE could give companies an incentive to relocate their production to the EU’s eastern flanks, possibly resulting in an increase in unemployment in original production locations. It also claimed that limiting labour access would be counterproductive given the likely proliferation of illegal practices aimed at bypassing the transitional rules (Solidarność, 1999b). The Poles stressed however that the free access of CEE labour to west European markets should not be used as a pretext for exploiting employees, and criticized the practice of hiring workers on the basis of standards different from those prevailing in EU Member States in which they take up employment (Solidarność, 2001b).

In the period following EU eastern enlargement, Polish trade unions often liaised with their west European counterparts on issues related to labour migration. In 2004, for instance, Solidarność signed an agreement with the German services union ver.di on mutual legal protection and representation of Solidarność members working in Germany and ver.di members working in Poland (Solidarność and ver.di, 2004). With Ireland an important destination for Polish workers, a similar deal was concluded between Solidarność and SIPTU, Ireland’s biggest union confederation. In November 2006, the two organizations agreed to mutually recognize union membership and pledged to encourage their respective nationals to join unions operating in their country of employment. They also condemned ‘social dumping’ and ‘a race to the bottom’, declaring that they would fight any attempts to stimulate competition between workers guided by the desire to lower wages and working conditions (Solidarność and SIPTU, 2006). A similar agreement concluded between the two Polish union confederations and the British TUC resulted in the secondment of a Solidarność organizer to the UK, where he helped the British unions recruit Polish workers in the north west (Fitzgerald and Hardy, 2010a).

At sectoral level, close ties developed between the two Polish construction unions and their Scandinavian and German counterparts. In 1999, Solidarność’s Construction Branch and ZZ Budowlani concluded a cooperation agreement with the German IG BAU, in which they vowed to exchange information on social standards in Poland and Germany, monitor the activities of their countries’ companies operating abroad and jointly fight illegal practices (Solidarność et al., 1999). Within the framework of a 2003 project launched by the IG BAU-linked PECO Institute, 200 Polish union officers received training on German wage and working conditions, membership recruitment tools and collective bargaining methods. According to an IG BAU officer responsible for the project, joint seminars enhanced mutual understanding between Polish and German unionists and led to the establishment of personal contacts between them (G, in 2005); Budowlani’s international relations’ officer similarly argued that Polish union members participating in the training ‘improved their skills and broadened their horizons’ (B1, in 2005). On the other hand, Polish labour organizations remained sceptical as to the so-called European Migrant Workers’ Union, set up shortly after EU eastern enlargement under the auspices of IG BAU. They feared that returning migrants belonging to the new organization might abstain from joining home country unions, and thus viewed it as potential competition to their own structures (B1, in 2005; B2, in 2006).

Employee posting and EU service market liberalization

It would be an exaggeration to claim that all Polish companies that expanded their activities into other EU markets had recourse to social dumping practices. At times, however, regulatory breaches related to cross-border service provision and employee posting were so blatant that they triggered trade union action in defence of the exploited posted workers. Following Poland’s EU accession, Solidarność’s International Office regularly intervened in individual and group cases of unpaid or excessively low wages, identifying the employers that breached relevant labour laws and helping their workers establish contacts with local unions.² In 2006, for instance, the union assisted a group of workers employed by a Polish subcontractor and posted to Bergen, Norway, who had not received their wages. It put them in touch with Fellesforbundet, the Norwegian trade union which first recruited this particular group of workers into their ranks, and then initiated legal proceedings against the employer (Fitzgerald and Hardy, 2010b). In a similar vein, in 2005 Solidarność supported the boycott of the Polish construction firm Nova Bud staged by Danish plumbers and electricians. While operating on the Danish island of Falster, the company paid wages below those laid down in the applicable collective agreement. In an interview with Danish media, a representative of Solidarność’s International Office that was involved in the case condemned Nova Bud’s social dumping practices, stating that Polish posted workers should be paid as much as domestic employees (SI1, in 2007). In January 2013, members of ZZ Budowlani participated in a 4000-strong demonstration against social dumping and the exploitation of migrant and posted workers in the EU, organized in Brussels by European federations representing the construction, transport and agricultural sectors.

In the mid-2000s, Polish trade unions similarly joined their west European counterparts in protests against the unfettered liberalization of EU service markets and the planned inclusion of the country of origin principle in the EU Services Directive. They stated that they did not want Polish workers to bring unfair competition to old EU Member States’ markets (Social Europe, 2006) or ‘to undermine the achievement of several decades of social dialogue in [western] Europe’ (Solidarność and Budowlani, 2006), and instead advocated an ‘upward, not downward convergence’ (OPZZ, 2006a) of economic and social conditions in the EU. For the latter scenario to materialize, however, it was necessary that high standards continued to exist in the west: in the eyes of a high-ranking ZZ Budowlani official, the dissolution of collective bargaining systems in Scandinavia and Germany, which would be the likely consequence of the adoption of the EU Services Directive in its initial liberal version, would end any prospect ‘of the adoption of better solutions’ in Poland (B2, in 2006). OPZZ (2006a) similarly argued that the application of the country of origin principle ‘would mean that there was practically no chance for enhancing the material conditions of [Polish] workers, while all other EU countries would be sentenced to a steady decline of wage and working standards’.

The liberal version of the EU Services Directive could also have had two more imminent negative consequences for Polish workers. First, the country of origin principle would have undermined the country’s employment standards when countries with even lower levels of wages and working conditions joined the EU (B2, in 2006; OPZZ, 2006b). As argued by a former Solidarność activist and ETUC official, ‘the elimination of barriers means that we are obliged to let others enter our [Polish] market. Soon it may turn out that Poles (…) will get replaced by Romanians and Bulgarians’ (Bankier, 2006). Secondly, the unions were wary of the possible legal disorder when services could be provided on the territory of a single EU Member State under over 20 different legal systems. To avoid problems with rule monitoring and enforcement, they stressed the necessity of abiding by the rules of the country in which the service was provided.

In addition to issuing such statements, Solidarność and OPZZ actively participated in demonstrations against the draft Directive that were held in Brussels in 2005 and in Strasbourg in 2006. As a result of the pan-European anti-Directive mobilization, in 2006 the European Parliament adopted a compromised version of the act without the contested country of origin principle. More recently, the Polish unions reiterated their support for host country standards in the context of the March 2016 Commission proposal for the targeted revision of the Posted Workers Directive. The Poles again sided with their western counterparts in demanding that posted workers receive the same remuneration as the domestic workforce. In their view, the arrangement based on local minima was discriminatory, led to social dumping accusations and threatened west European collective bargaining systems (Solidarność, 2016; OPZZ in 2016; S, in 2016).

Discussion and conclusions

The overview of union discourses and actions presented in the previous section has demonstrated that, from the outset of the EU enlargement process, Polish trade unions set themselves against the logic of low-cost competitiveness³, contradicting initial west European concerns over the potential liberal orientation of CEE labour organizations.

To account for the unions’ anti-dumping stance, it is necessary to put it in a broader policy context, and consider the shift in their strategic orientation in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The preceding decade characterized by the pro-market orientation of top union officials and the relative passivity of shop-floor structures had resulted in a dramatic fall of societal support for unions and a sharp decrease in density rates. In an effort to make up for these losses, Polish labour organizations entered the new millennium with a more critical assessment of transition-induced reforms. The abandonment of their unconditional support for capitalism extended beyond country-level affairs; specifically, it influenced the unions’ positions on the prospective EU enlargement and made them reject the logic of low-cost competitiveness in the context of the EU Internal Market.

Another novel element of the Polish trade union agenda at the turn of the century was the increased focus on ‘bread and butter’ issues and rank-and-file interest representation. Both confederations loosened their links with political parties, as illustrated by Solidarność’s withdrawal from the Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS) political alliance in 2001. They also undertook first attempts to recruit new members and sought to address the needs of existing ones via provision of services and workplace-level bargaining over restructuring terms and working conditions (Ost, 2002; Gardawski, 2001; Krzywdzinski, 2010). Their anti-dumping stance depicted in this article fits in well with this growing focus on members’ interests; as demonstrated below, it can also be examined through the lens of the insider-outsider theorem.

The insider-outsider theorem is applied to situations where some members of the labour force (‘insiders’) enjoy a more favourable position and/or are better protected than others (‘outsiders’). It might thus capture a variety of divides, e.g. between the employed and the unemployed, or between workers with permanent employment contracts and those working on a temporary basis (Lindbeck and Snower, 2001). These divisions are expected to translate into opposing policy preferences with regard to the extent of employment protection or the generosity of national welfare policies, and to influence party programmes and the specific policy mixes they promote (Rueda, 2007). In the economic and politico-economic literature, trade unions are usually portrayed as representatives of labour market insiders, i.e. workers in stable employment who are also more inclined to become union members. Less encompassing organizations such as CEE unions are particularly likely to pursue narrow insider interests rather than solidaristic goals (Lindvall and Rueda, 2013).

The opening of national labour markets and the increase in intra-EU workforce mobility adds a new dimension to the insider-outsider dichotomy. In the context of the present article, the main division line runs between the interests of ‘insiders’ – i.e. the domestic workforce that includes unions’ current and potential members – and those of ‘outsiders’ comprising various groups of transnationally mobile citizens: non-unionized workers leaving Poland and wishing to take up employment in the west; self-employed individuals seeking to make short-term profits in ‘old’ EU Member States; and posted workers, whose stay outside the country is only temporary, but who are concentrated in sectors characterized by low levels of unionization. By taking an anti-dumping stance, Polish trade unions catered primarily to the interests of its current and future members, who benefited from the gradual convergence of their wages and working conditions towards west European standards. The prospects for such improvement would be bleak if west European conditions – the ‘social archetype’ to which the Poles aspired – came under pressure from outsiders taking up substandard employment in other EU Member States.

Determined to protect high (western) standards, Polish unions favoured the extension of outsiders’ employment opportunities only when the latter ‘were treated fairly’ (SI2, in 2007), i.e. in accordance with host country norms. However, the fact that such compliance could limit outsiders’ short-term job prospects put unions – as suggested by the title of this article – ‘between a rock and a hard place’. In public debates, they had to express their preference for either leveraging the cost advantages of CEE companies and mobile workers, or defending working conditions and promoting long-term socio-economic convergence with the west. By choosing the latter strategy, they exposed themselves to criticism from the side of the government and liberally minded public opinion. Such judgements were particularly harsh in the context of the draft Services Directive: Poland’s Minister of the Economy referred to unions’ objections to the country of origin principle as a ‘misunderstanding’ and ‘badly understood solidarity with German and French trade unions’ (Gazeta Wyborcza, 2006), whereas media outlets accused Solidarność and OPZZ of ‘torpedoing’ the government, MEPs and employer efforts to promote job creation and economic growth, and hence of ‘acting against the interests of their fellow citizens’ (Gazeta.pl, 2006; Bankier, 2006; Trybuna, 2006).

Despite these critical reactions, the unions’ anti-dumping stance has had important long-term effects. First, it constituted an important element of the unequivocally pro-social policy line promoted by Polish labour organizations since the late 1990s. It seems that their persistent efforts to build a counter-narrative have started to reap results: after the initial societal enthusiasm for neoliberal solutions, a more critical vision of the country’s transformation course and ‘competitiveness at all costs’ logic is slowly entering public consciousness and gaining societal appeal, as illustrated by the heightened mobilization against labour market precarization and the wide scale of Solidarność’s signature-gathering initiative against retirement age reform (Bernaciak, in press). Even popular outlets not usually sympathetic to union demands have moved away from their unconditional support for liberal strategies, making space for the presentation of union stances and reform proposals (see e.g. Gazeta Wyborcza, 2015).

Secondly, Polish trade unions’ rejection of rule evasion and social dumping practices confirms Lindstrom’s (2010) assertion that there is potential for cross-border coalitions in defence of high social standards. In recent years, labour organizations from ‘old’ and ‘new’ EU Member States have put forward joint demands regarding employee-friendly regulations. They have also staged numerous ‘on-the-ground’ activities, spotlighting instances of abuse and assisting migrant and posted workers. The experiences of the ‘Fair Mobility’ platform run by the German DGB confederation and its CEE counterparts (Sepsi, 2014) or the close cooperation between the transport sector section of the Dutch FNV and the Polish Solidarność (Atema, 2015) suggest that such east-west union alliances can be effective in promoting higher employment standards for transnationally mobile EU citizens.

Footnotes

Funding

This work was partially supported by student research grants offered by Central European University.

Notes

Interviews

B1 – International Relations Officer of ZZ Budowlani. Warsaw, 28 April 2005.

B2 – Secretary of ZZ Budowlani Secretary. Budapest, 4 April 2006.

G 2005 – IG BAU officer in the Berlin Brandenburg region responsible for the PECO project. Berlin, 3 May 2005.

OPZZ 2016 – Director of OPZZ International Office. Phone interview, 10 May 2016.

SC – Secretary of Solidarność’s Sectoral Branch for the Construction and Wood Industry. Cracow, 26 and 27 April 2005.

SI1 – International Relations officer at Solidarność’s National Commission. Gdańsk, 16 June 2007.

SI2 2007 – Head of Solidarność’s International Office. Gdansk, 3 January 2007

S 2016 – Legal expert at Solidarość Social Policy Department. Phone interview, 9 May 2016.

References

Atema

(2015) Presentation at the Midterm Conference of the ETUC Project on Letter-box Companies. Amsterdam, 17 November 2015.

Bankier (2006) Nasi Związkowcy Boją się Rumuńskich Hydraulików. Available at: http://www.bankier.pl/firma/ue/article.html?article_id=1401624.

Barysch

(2005) East versus West? The European economic and social model after enlargement. Progressive Politics 4.3. Available at: http://www.policy-network.net/uploadedFiles/Publications/Publications/Barysch_4%203%20qxd.pdf.

Bernaciak

(2010) Cross-border competition and trade union responses in the enlarged EU: Evidence from the automotive industry in Germany and Poland. European Journal of Industrial Relations 16(2): 119–135.

Bernaciak

(2015) Introduction: Social Dumping in the EU Integration Process. In: Bernaciak

(ed.) Market Expansion and Social Dumping in Europe. London and New York: Routledge, pp: 1–22.

Bernaciak

(in press) Coming full circle? Contestation, social dialogue and trade union politics in Poland. In: Lehndorff

Schulten

Dribbusch

Trade Unions under the Conditions of the European Crisis. Brussels: ETUI.

Bohle

(2008) Race to the Bottom? Comparative Institutional Advantages? Competition of Capitalisms in the Enlarged EU. Paper presented at the Political Economy Research Group seminar, Central European University, Budapest, 26 March 2008.

Bohle

Husz

(2003) Whose Europe is it? Interest Group Action in Accession Negotiations: The Cases of Competition Policy and Labor Migration. Politique Européenne 15(4): 85–112.

Bosch

Zühlke-Robinet

(2000) Der Bauarbeitsmarkt. Soziologie und Ökonomie einer Branche. Frankfurt am Main: Campus.

10.

Clift

Howarth

(2010) France, Managed Globalisation, Social Europe and EU Enlargement: Rising Ambivalence on Market Integration in the EU-27. In: PSA Conference Proceedings 2010. Available at: http://www.psa.ac.uk/journals/pdf/5/2010/157_447.pdf.

11.

Cremers

(2011) In search of cheap labour in Europe. Working and living conditions of posted workers. Brussels: CLR Studies 6.

12.

Cremers

Dølvik

Bosch

(2007) Posting of workers in the single market: attempts to prevent social dumping and regime competition in the EU. Industrial Relations Journal 38(6): 524–541.

13.

Crowley

Ost

(eds) (2001) Workers and Workers’ States. Lanham, Boulder, New York and Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

14.

Degryse

Tilly

(2013) 1973–2013: 40 Years of History of the European Trade Union Confederation. Brussels: ETUI.

15.

DGB and Solidarność (1999) The Declaration of DGB and Solidarity on the EU Eastern Enlargement.

16.

Duszczyk

Poprzęcki

(2000) Rozszerzenie Unii Europejskiej w opinii związków zawodowych oraz organizacji pracodawców. Warsaw: Instytut Spraw Publicznych.

17.

EMCEF (2004) Motion on the Rejection of the Bolkestein Directive at the EMCEF Congress, 8–10 June 2004. Available at: http://www.emcef.org/news/Bolkestein-en.pdf.

18.

ETUC (2004) ETUC position paper: The proposal for the Directive on services in the internal market. Available at: http://www.etuc.org/documents/etuc-position-paper-proposal-directive-services-internal-market#.VMotamjF-VM.

19.

Fitzgerald

Hardy

(2010a) ‘Thinking Outside the Box?’ Trade Union Organizing Strategies and Polish Migrant Workers in the United Kingdom. British Journal of Industrial Relations 48(1): 131–150.

20.

Fitzgerald

Hardy

(2010b) Negotiating ‘solidarity’ and internationalism: the response of Polish Trade Unions to migration. Industrial Relations Journal 41(4): 367–381.

21.

Frank

(2011) The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition and the Common Good. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

22.

Gardawski

(2001) Związki zawodowe na rozdrożu. Warsaw: Instytut Spraw Publicznych.

23.

Gazeta.pl (2006) Wolne usługi nie dla nas? Available at: https://gospodarka.gateza.pl/gispodarka/1,52981,3158722.html.

24.

Gazeta Wyborcza (2006) Związki zawodowe krzyczą: hydraulik musi zostać!. Available at: http://www.archiwum.wyborcza.pl/Archiwum/1,0,4600992,20060316RP-DGW,Zwiazki_zawodowe_krzycza_hydraulik_musi_zostac,.html (accessed 2 February 2015).

25.

Gazeta Wyborcza (2015) Dziesięć postulatów OPZZ ws. śmieciówek. Available at: http://wyborcza.biz/biznes/1,100897,18390698,dziesiec-postulatow-opzz-ws-smiecioowek.html.

26.

Iankova

(2000) Multi-level Bargaining during Bulgaria’s Return to Capitalism. Industrial and Labor Relations Review 54(1): 115–137.

27.

IG BAU (2000) Position der Industriegewerkschaft Bauen-Agrar-Umwelt zur EU-Ostwereiterung.

28.

IG BAU (2005) Nein zur Bolkenstein- Richtlinie! In: Laux

E-L

(2005) Europa aktuell. Arbeitsbedingungen, Tarifverträge und soziale Beziehungen im Baugewerbe. Frankfurt am Main: Bundesvorstand IG BAU.

29.

Krings

(2009) A Race to the Bottom? Trade Unions, EU Enlargement and the Free Movement of Labour. European Journal of Industrial Relations 15(1): 49–69.

30.

Krzywdzinski

(2010) Organizing employees in Central Eastern Europe: The approach of Solidarność. European Journal of Industrial Relations 16(3): 277–292.

31.

Kunz

(2002) Labour Mobility and EU Enlargement: a Review of Current Trends and Debates. ETUI DWP 2002.02.01. Brussels: ETUI.

32.

Lindbeck

Snower

(2001) Insiders versus Outsiders. Journal of Economic Perspectives 15(1): 165–188.

33.

Lindstrom

(2010) Service Liberalization in the Enlarged EU: A Race to the Bottom or the Emergence of Transnational Political Conflict? Journal of Common Market Studies 48(5): 1307–1327.

34.

Lindvall

Rueda

(2013) The Insider-Outsider Dilemma. British Journal of Political Science 44(2): 1–16.

35.

Marginson

(2006) Between Europeanization and Regime Competition: Labour Market Regulation Following EU Enlargement. Warwick Papers in Industrial Relations 79. Coventry: University of Warwick.

36.

Meardi

(2002) The Trojan Horse for the Americanization of Europe? Polish Industrial Relations towards the EU. European Journal of Industrial Relations 8(1): 77–99.

37.

Meardi

(2004) Short Circuits in Multinational Companies: The Extension of European Works Councils to Poland. European Journal of Industrial Relations 10(2): 161–178.

38.

OPZZ (2000) Stanowisko Nadzwyczajnego Kongresu OPZZ w sprawie integracji europejskiej. Kronika Związkowa 63(258)/2000.

39.

OPZZ (2001) Stanowisko Rady OPZZ w sprawie przepływu siły roboczej w kontekście integracji Polski z Unią Europejską. Kronika Związkowa 23(304)/2001.

40.

OPZZ (2003) Wystąpienie Wiesławy Taranowskiej - wiceprzewodniczącej OPZZ. Kronika Związkowa 40(469)/2003.

41.

OPZZ (2004) Przemówienie Przewodniczącego OPZZ Jana Guza otwierające 1-majową demonstrację. Kronika Związkowa 39(569)/2004.

42.

OPZZ (2006a) Związkowcy w Strasbourgu za Europą socjalną. Kronika Związkowa 24 /2006.

43.

OPZZ (2006b) Oświadczenie OPZZ w sprawie swobody przepływu pracowników w Unii Europejskiej i imigracji zarobkowej. Projekt.

44.

Ost

(2000) Illusory Corporatism in Eastern Europe: Neoliberal Tripartism and Postcommunist Class Identities. Politics & Society 28(4): 503–530.

45.

Ost

(2002) The Weakness of Strong Social Movements: Models of Unionism in the East European Context. European Journal of Industrial Relations 8(1): 33–51.

46.

Ost

(2005) The Defeat of Solidarity. Anger and Politics in Postcommunist Europe. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

47.

Pollert

(1999) Trade Unionism in Transition in Central and Eastern Europe. European Journal of Industrial Relations 5(2): 209–234.

48.

Rogowski

(1989) Commerce and Coalitions. How Trade Affects Domestic Political Alignments. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

49.

Rueda

(2007) Social Democracy Inside Out. Partisanship and Labour Market Policy in Industrialized Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

50.

Seideneck

(1993) Vertiefung oder Erweiterung? Zu aktuellen Problemen der Europäischen Gewerkschaftspolitik. Gewerkschaftliche Monatshefte 9: 543–552.

51.

Sepsi Sz (2014) Presentation at the workshop ‘Transnational workers in Germany and the Netherlands’, Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), Düsseldorf, 2 April 2014.

52.

Social Europe (2006) Future of Services Directive Unclear. Available at: http://www.social-europe.org.uk/bulletins/051220newsanalysis.htm.

53.

Solidarność (1999a) Stanowisko KK nr 1777/99 ws. integracji Polski z Unią Europejską.

54.

Solidarność (1999b) Stanowisko KK nr 190/99 w sprawie swobodnego przepływu pracowników po rozszerzeniu UE.

55.

Solidarność (2001a) Stanowisko Prezydium KK nr 172/2001 – 20.11.2011 ws. negocjacji dotyczących przystąpienia Polski do Unii Europejskiej.

56.

Solidarność (2001b) Statement no 23/2001 of the National Commission of NSZZ Solidarność on negotiations in reference to EU enlargement. Available at: https://www.solidarnosc.org.pl/pl/dokumenty/biuro-prezydium-kk/komisja-krajowa/item/1025-european-integration-statements-of-the-national-commission-of-nszz-solidarnosc.

57.

Solidarność (2016) Będą godne wynagrodzenia dla polskich pracowników delegowanych? Available at: http://www.solidarnosc.org.pl/aktualnosci/wiadomosci/kraj/item/12760-beda-godne-wynagrodzenia-dla-polskich-pracownikow-delegowanych.

58.

Solidarność and Budowlani (2006) Stanowisko Związku Zawodowego ‘Budowlani’ i Sekretariatu Budownictwa i Przemysłu Drzewnego NSZZ ‘Solidarność’ w sprawie swobody przepływu siły roboczej w budownictwie i swobody świadczenia usług w tym sektorze.

59.

Solidarność and SIPTU (2006) Umowa między SPITU, Irlandia, a NSZZ Solidarność, Polska.

60.

Solidarność and ver.di (2004) Porozumienie w sprawie ochrony prawnej.

61.

Solidarność, Budowlani and IG BAU (1999) Umowa o współpracy.

62.

Stolper

Samuelson

(1941) Protection and Real Wages. Review of Economic Studies 9(1): 58–73.

63.

Streeck

(1997) Beneficial Constraints: on the Economic Limits of Rational Voluntarism. In: Boyer

Hollingsworth

(eds) Contemporary Capitalism: The Embeddedness of Institutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp: 197–221.

64.

Streeck

(1998) La logique des stratégies politiques de class dans l’espace transnational. In: Nadel

Lindley

(eds) Les relations sociales en Europe: economie et institutions. Paris: L’Harmattan, pp. 139–150.

65.

Trybuna (2006) Polacy przeciwko Polakom? 17 February 2006.

66.

Vaughan-Whitehead

(2003) EU Enlargement versus Social Europe? The Uncertain Future of the European Social Model. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

67.

Vickerstaff

Thirkell

JEM

(2000) Instrumental Rationality and European Integration: Transfer of Avoidance of Industrial Relations Institutions in Central and Eastern Europe? European Journal of Industrial Relations 6(2): 237–251.