OPZZ and four employers' confederations sign bipartite agreement

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In December 2003, shortly after the collapse of tripartite talks over a wide-ranging 'social agreement', Poland's OPZZ trade union confederation and the four representative employers' confederation concluded a bipartite agreement on proposed changes to the Labour Code. Neither the government nor the other two main trade union organisations (NSZZ Solidarność and FZZ) were party to this deal. The government later endorsed the agreement and in April 2004 proposed amendments to the Labour Code largely (but not wholly) in line with those agreed by OPZZ and the employers.

Since 2001, two national bipartite agreements have been reached by means of bargaining between employers' organisations and trade unions. The first of these, reached in 2001, was between the All-Polish Alliance of Trade Unions (Ogólnopolskie Porozumienie Związków Zawodowych, OPZZ), on the one hand, and two employers' confederations on the other - the Polish Confederation of Private Employers (Polska Konfederacja Pracodawców Prywatnych, PKPP) and the Association of Polish Crafts (Związek Rzemiosła Polskiego, ZRP).

The 2001 agreement has recently been joined by a second. This was concluded in December 2003 between OPZZ and all four employers' confederations designated as 'representative' (PL0209104F) and with seats on the Tripartite Commission for Social and Economic Affairs (Komisja Trójstronna do Spraw Społeczno-Gospodarczych) (PL0210106F).

Both of these agreements were prepared and concluded outside the Tripartite Commission. Commentators state that their conclusion testifies to a striving for bipartite dialogue and compromise on the part of at least some of the social partners in Poland, as well as to the existence of certain barriers that make the attainment of understanding among all the partners difficult.

The 2001 agreement

In the second half of the 1990s, the work of the Tripartite Commission for Social and Economic Affairs was brought to an impasse by a walk-out by the Independent and Self-Governing Trade Union Solidarity (Niezależny Samorządny Związek Zawodowy, NSZZ Solidarność), followed by OPZZ. Both of these central union organisations were quite deeply involved in politics at the time, and their leaders sympathised with opposing elements - NSZZ Solidarność with right-leaning groups and OPZZ with left-leaning ones. Observers believed that the two union organisations tended to view the Tripartite Commission in 'instrumental' terms, as a vehicle for advancing their own political agendas rather than for social dialogue proper.

Despite the official suspension of the Tripartite Commission’s work, the individual 'problem teams' convened within it continued to meet, and work on a new law regulating the Commission continued, with this legislation eventually enacted by parliament in July 2001. In the late 1990s, NSZZ Solidarność was an important member of the ruling coalition government in Poland. OPZZ, meanwhile, was allied with the Democratic Left Alliance (Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej, SLD), at that time the principal opposition party. OPZZ officially suspended its involvement in the Tripartite Commission, claiming that the right-wing government was paying heed only to the input of NSZZ Solidarność and ignoring OPZZ.

At the same time, OPZZ embarked on discussions with the PKPP and ZRP employers' confederations. At this point, PKPP was still not a member of the Tripartite Commission, although it sought such membership (and eventually achieved it, upon meeting the criteria laid down in the July 2001 law reforming the Commission). The negotiations carried much weight for both PKPP and OPZZ. PKPP wanted to be a good advocate of the interests of private employers and, by achieving an agreement with a major union organisation, to demonstrate that it was capable of finding common ground with the representatives of workers. OPZZ, meanwhile, seeing its activities within the Tripartite Commission as being constrained by NSZZ Solidarność, was eager to stake out a viable position on its own, displaying initiative in obtaining practical concessions from employers. The agreement reached in 2001 through dialogue between OPZZ, PKPP and ZRP touched upon a wide range of employment and economic problems - redundancies, counteracting unemployment, social benefits provided by employers, privatisation, industrial and budgetary policies etc. Particularly controversial issues were left to be addressed at a later date.

A notable element of the agreement was the participants’ mutual acknowledgment of one another’s standing and significance: 'relations between employers and employees progress by way of cooperation and dialogue as between partners ... the Polish Confederation of Private Employers and the Association of Polish Crafts recognise the trade unions to be an important partner in social dialogue. OPZZ considers the employers' organisations to be an important entity as regards the development of social and economic relations.' Research carried out by the Faculty of Economic Sociology at the Warsaw School of Economics (Katedra Socjologii Ekonomicznej Szkoły Głównej Handlowej w Warszawie, SGH) suggests that, during the initial stages of the talks, PKPP experts feared that OPZZ would adopt an intransigent position and refuse to soften its demands. As it turned out, however, the parties needed little time to establish a basis for understanding.

It was the original intent of the three parties to the agreement to submit it for endorsement to all members of the Tripartite Commission, but neither the Confederation of Polish Employers (Konfederacja Pracodawców Polskich, KPP) - the largest confederation of business enterprises, assembling at that time mostly state-owned enterprises and former state-owned enterprises whose holding structures had since been transformed - nor NSZZ Solidarność gave their approval to its provisions.

The 2003 agreement

The genesis of the bipartite agreement signed in December 2003 was somewhat different.

In March 2003 (PL0307104F), the Minister of Labour proposed a draft tripartite 'pact for labour and development' to representatives of trade unions and employers at a session of the Tripartite Commission. The aim was to come up with a comprehensive solution to address many of the problems currently facing the country. After NSZZ Solidarność rejected the idea of such a pact, negotiations instead progressed (PL0309106F) over a 'social agreement'. Although consensus was achieved in some narrow areas, in December 2003 the Labour Minister and (the Commission’s chair) officially announced the conclusion, without success, of the tripartite social agreement negotiations (PL0312104F)

The collapse of the talks came as a major disappointment to the employers' organisations - which have gone to considerable lengths since 2001 to coordinate their policies, to a large extent at the behest of Henryka Bochniarz, the president of PKPP. While OPZZ and the Trade Union Forum (Forum Związków Zawodowych, FZZ) (PL0212109F) also voiced reservations at various points in the discussions, the eventual failure of the tripartite social agreement project was due largely to the position of NSZZ Solidarność, whose representatives generally found that the proposed solutions disproportionately favoured employers while damaging the interests of workers. Also, it appears that NSZZ Solidarność was loath to extend the legitimisation implied by a wide-ranging tripartite agreement to a government that it did not trust (dominated by the 'post-communist' SLD party). As mentioned, however, the nine months of negotiations did yield understanding on certain issues, such as an agreement that corporate taxes could be reduced if an appropriate minimum wage is guaranteed to workers.

Once it became manifest that the tripartite agreement talks could not succeed in the ambitious form proposed, in November 2003 the employers' organisations and two trade union centres, OPZZ and FZZ, commenced negotiations on a bipartite agreement on proposed changes to the Labour Code. This accord was eventually signed on 23 December 2003 (three weeks after the collapse of the tripartite talks), though without FZZ, which withdrew at the last moment. Key issues addressed in this agreement include the legal regime governing fixed-term employment contracts, amendments to the legislation regarding resolution of collective disputes, and the rules governing the appointment of mediators in labour disputes. These provisions met with sharp criticism on the part of NSZZ Solidarność, which started an information campaign on the issue among its members.

The government subsequently endorsed the bipartite agreement. In April 2004, it proposed amendments to the Labour Code based on the agreement, but inserted a few more changes of its own. OPZZ believed that the entire government proposal was being presented to legislators and the general public as being in line with the agreement between OPZZ and the employers, when in fact this was not the case. OPZZ thus protested and announced its own proposed modifications.

Commentary

The fact that an agreement has been reached among certain social partners only, while all-encompassing agreement within the Tripartite Commission proves elusive, is the result of several factors. Perhaps the most important of these is the constant mistrust poisoning relations between the two major union organisations, OPZZ and NSZZ Solidarność, and also in the recurring conflicts between consecutive left-leaning governments and NSZZ Solidarność, as well as between right-leaning political elements and OPZZ. At the same time, the employers' organisations have been progressively integrating their positions and their operation, and have grown increasingly committed to reaching agreements with the trade unions - an attitude which finds a willing partner in OPZZ. Perhaps the new challenges brought by Poland’s accession to the European Union in May 2004 will improve the chances for agreement among all the social partners. (Juliusz Gardawski, Institute of Public Affairs [Instytut Spraw Publicznych, ISP] and Warsaw School of Economics [Szkoła Główna Handlowa, SGH])