A number of struggles by workers in Poland have erupted over the last several months in response to the government’s "restructuring" measures, which have included the sell-off of state industries and steep job cuts.

Warsaw’s austerity measures come as the government negotiates the conditions for Poland’s entry into the European Union next month.

According to polls, Leznek Miller, Poland’s prime minister, elected last year as part of a coalition government of the Democratic Left Alliance Party and Polish Peasants’ Party, has seen his approval rating drop from 50 percent at the time of the elections to 34 percent this past month as the details of the final negotiations for Poland’s entry into the EU have emerged.

"Our patience is running out," Wojciech Gubik, a miner from Gliwice, told reporters. "We have families, children to support. We will fight for our jobs."

Another miner, Janusz Rados, told Polish radio, "All we want are jobs that would allow us to earn money for our families. Those politicians in Warsaw don’t seem to understand that."

Two protest actions were organized by miners, steelworkers, and others in Warsaw last month.

Shipyard workers are locked in a struggle for pay and job protection against a shipping company that was privatized in 1990s. Meanwhile, the first privately owned coal mine was opened in the town of Zabrze early this year.

The Silesia region, one of the main coal mining and industrial centers of the country, has been hit particularly hard by the government’s measures. The official unemployment rate in that region is 30 percent, compared to the national rate of nearly 18 percent.

Coal mining jobs have been slashed from 400,000 in 1990 to 140,000 today. The government plans to close seven more mines, eliminating an additional 35,000 jobs. Warsaw’s austerity package includes measures that threaten 10,000 workers in the steel industry.

Meanwhile, between 1990 and 1997 productivity rose by 53 percent. The amount of coal extracted from one longwall face (coal seam) more than doubled from 863 tons up to 1,889 tons over the same period.

Declining working conditions have taken a bloody toll on mine workers. In the first 10 months of this year 31 miners have been killed, compared to 24 in 2001. In the worst coal mine disaster in Poland since 1987, an explosion in a Silesia mine took the lives of 10 workers in February.

The conditions that Brussels is demanding for Poland’s entry into the EU will have devastating effects on the 2.6 million people who work the land.

The current offer will provide farmers in Poland with only 25 percent of the subsidies that farmers receive in existing EU member states. Brussels is also demanding that Warsaw pay out 2.6 billion euros per year as a condition of membership.  
 
 
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