Trade unions, foreign investment and the restructuring of Polish enterprises

Abstract

The article, based on extensive research by the authors in the form of numerous interviews conducted in the field since 1993, focuses on the dynamics of the transformation of the Kracow regional economy. After an initial account of the national-level restructuring context and the tension-ridden involvement of Solidarity in the political sphere, the main section of the article reports in some detail on two case studies of union organisation in the ZPT cigarette factory, bought by Philip Morris in 1996, and the HTS steel plant. The developments witnessed and described lead the authors to the conclusion that, in both instances, disillusion and discontent with both the process and outcomes of the restructuring process is beginning to emerge, pulling the trade unions, and particularly Solidarity, in opposite directions simultaneously insofar as, while having to protect their members from the increasingly adverse effects of transformation, they nonetheless remain at the forefront of the advocacy of change