Teachers’ union threatens strike action over pre-retirement eligibility

The Polish Teachers’ Union announced in May 2007 that it would hold a warning strike if teachers did not receive guarantees of special pre-retirement benefits, known as bridge benefits. The union also demanded pay increases and greater public spending on education at local level, in addition to calling for a new minister for education.

Demands of teachers’ union

The Polish Teachers’ Union (Związek Nauczycielstwa Polskiego, ZNP), affiliated to the All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions (Ogólnopolskie Porozumienie Związków Zawodowych, OPZZ), has been on standby for a strike since the beginning of May 2007. ZNP has put forward the following demands:

• pension rights and eligibility for teachers are to be kept unchanged beyond 2007;

• teachers must receive bridge pensions;

• teachers and other education workers must receive significant pay increases, in the order of 20%–30%;

• public spending on education should be increased to enable local authorities to carry out all of their duties in this area;

• the leadership of the Ministry of National Education (Ministerstwo Edukacji Narodowej, MEN) should be changed;

• the major problems of Polish education need to be resolved, including the provision of equal educational opportunities.

Background of dispute

The direct cause of the escalation in the conflict between ZNP and the Polish government in the spring of 2007 seems to be the issue of bridge benefits. Work on a legislative act which would reorganise the system of pre-retirement benefits has been eight years in the making; thus, the social partners are somewhat sceptical of the government’s declarations about readiness to commence social consultations in respect of the finished draft. The fact that, in their statements on the subject, different government representatives seemed to be referring to no less than three different proposals for the act did not help matters either.

The most controversial version of the act provides for reducing the number of persons eligible for bridge benefits from 1.2 million, as it currently stands, to approximately 300,000 persons – with all teachers to be excluded. Under the second version, eligibility for bridge benefits would remain at its present level, at a cost of PLN 68 billion (approximately €20 billion as at 18 May 2007) to the state budget. Alternatively, the third version of the act would offer bridge benefits to some 710,000 persons, including teachers.

Escalation of conflict

On 18 April 2007, representatives of OPZZ met with the Minister of Labour and Social Policy, Anna Kalata, who presented the main premises of the draft statute. However, it was not clear from the minister’s statements whether teachers would be included among the bridge benefit recipients. Following this meeting, an extraordinary session of the ZNP board was called for 8 May; more than 400 chairpersons of ZNP’s county branches attended.

The ideas for a suitable form of protest which were considered at the meeting included blockading roads, occupying the MEN office in Warsaw, refusing to sign pupils’ report cards, organising joint conferences with parents, and a long-term strike of teachers and other education workers. Some participants at the meeting called for more moderate forms of protest. Apart from discussing pension privileges for teachers, the session’s attendees also demanded pay increases.

In the end, the Chair of ZNP, Sławomir Broniarz, appealed to the trade union members to carry out an information campaign up to 15 May 2007, meeting with local government representatives and teachers, discussing the union’s demands and gathering feedback. On 7 May, teachers in some schools went on standby to strike, flying flags and distributing leaflets. The next step would be to decide on a warning strike.

Commentary

The reasons for the current conflict between ZNP and the government are twofold. First, the earnings of Polish teachers are in general very low, although some salary variation may be found depending on the financial position of the individual local authorities. This point is underlined by the fact that recent demands concerning the remuneration for teachers proposed a minimum of PLN 2,000 net (approximately €600) per month. Given the poor state of public finances in Poland, it is unlikely that even this demand can be met.

In a situation where many Polish teachers in effect belong to the [working poor](/search/node/ewco OR employment OR workingpoor OR ?oldIndex), misunderstandings and over-interpretations are easily made, and it appears that this is the second reason behind the present conflict. An ongoing verbal discord exists between the left-leaning, secular-minded ZNP and the Minister of National Education, Roman Giertych of the League of Polish Families (Liga Polskich Rodzin, LPR), a right-wing party which uses religious rhetoric. Communication between ZNP and the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy (Ministerstwo Pracy i Polityki Społecznej, MPiPS) have also been difficult of late; Minister Kalata, is a member of the Self-Defence Party (Samoobrona Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej, Samoobrona), the third coalition partner of the ruling Law and Justice Party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS).

The information flow within the government seems to be problematic, judging by an analysis of the draft legislative act regarding bridge benefits dated 27 April 2007. Under this proposal, bridge benefits would extend to women aged 55 years and men aged 60 years who have spent at least 15 years working under ‘special’ conditions, defined as including, among others, the following economic areas:

• air transport;

• maritime commercial ports and enterprise;

• steel processing;

• marine fisheries;

• processing of asbestos-containing materials;

• units specified in the legislative Act of January 1982 – the Teachers’ Charter (for persons working as teachers or education officers).

Thus, the proposition that teachers may lose their entitlement to bridge benefits appears unlikely. More pressing issues, at least in the short term, are the value of these benefits, pay increases for teachers and defusing the conflict between ZNP and the MEN.

Jacek Sroka, Institute of Public Affairs (ISP)