Activists from the small militant Polish union Workers’ Initiative (W.I.) recently visited the UK for a mini-speaking tour. The story of their organising achievements against corrupt employers in public healthcare is both impressive and thought-provoking, and far-removed from most of our own daily experiences. It deserves maximum exposure to the labour movement here.

Building the union and the opening salvo

In January 2007 a W.I. member started work at a council-owned secure mental hospital in Bielsko-Biala, southern Poland. In 17 years existence of the hospital there had never been a union there. This meant there was a huge amount of grievances amongst the employees – but it also created the right conditions for W.I. to grow. Workers at the hospital were inexperienced regarding unions and so it was a learning process for all as they went along.

Following some discussions the hospital staff themselves proposed getting organised, approaching the W.I. member with the desire to have a meeting after a few months. The core at the start was just 12 people. Growth was slow - but steady.

In December 2007 the union drew up a list of postulates and handed them to the boss. Their demands included:

• Changes to the regulations of the hospital’s social fund (this fund is a kind of welfare required for Polish workplaces over a certain size, to pay for social activities for the workforce, especially poorer employees. It is commonly managed by the employer in conjunction with the union). The existing regulations were not satisfactory as they made it easy for the bosses to steal/divert/siphon off money from the fund.
• A wage increase of 400 zlotys (£100) per person.

The union asked for copies of all hospital regulations, and found that, illegally, many were not written down. Suspecting fraud by management, they also asked to see the complete financial documentation of the company for the past 3 years. They chose this time period as this is the legal window during which workers can make a claim against their employer in Poland (point of note – the corresponding claim period for Polish bosses to claim against their employees is 5 years...).

Negotiation achieved nothing so the union asked for a delegate from the Ministry of Labour. This can be quite a lottery as some Ministry of Labour delegates are more boss friendly, while others have represented (and favour) unions. W.I. was lucky and the delegate that arrived had experience of working with unions. The delegate has no decision making power and is supposed be a neutral arbitrator. However he said that he supported the W.I. claims, although there was nothing that he could do.

The union investigated the regulations themselves to see if they complied with Polish law. They found several examples of invalid activities – the illegal social fund arrangements, incorrect overtime payments, and more. They passed their findings on to the Bureau of Labour and also some good contacts that they had in the media, and the hospital director resigned over the irregularities.

After this departure, no replacement was found for quite some time. When the new director finally arrived, some new deals were signed. Most of these were timescales for things that already had to be sorted by management anyway, or fines imposed on those who had caused the previous problems. But one of the most important agreements struck was new regulations for the social fund, written entirely by the union, stating that 90% of funds could be instantly passed straight to the workers (previously this proportion was just 30%). The other 10% was kept as a welfare fund, for example to be paid out to a family in the event of a death.

The union had forced the employer to accept that the workers will be partly responsible for deciding how the workplace operates. However, despite the new regulations being in place, the money was not forthcoming, and W.I. took the hospital management to court. Over the previous 3 years the employers had stolen 160,000 zlotys from the social fund (£40,000) and withheld 100,000 zlotys (£25,000) in unpaid wages.

Stepping up action and reaping the spoils

Because the demands from the workers’ original set of postulates had only been partly accomplished, W.I. balloted for strike. By now there were 50 members at the hospital, which was 1/3 of the workforce. The outcome of the vote was 80% in favour, with non-members also supportive. It was also basically a vote against the new director, showing the media that the workers were radical and wouldn’t be appeased by a new director.

W.I. had to carefully choose the form of the strike as they could not leave patients at the closed hospital unattended. This is a dilemma that all health and social care workers who have taken industrial action, or thought about it, will be familiar with. The chosen aspects were:

• Red and black flags hung all around the hospital site
• Employees wore T-shirts saying ‘on strike’
• Press conferences

Admin workers would have been able to walk out but there were not a lot of W.I. members in that section – most members were carers.

The adapted strike was fully victorious, and the workers won an 8% wage increase... twice. On a third occasion they achieved a flat-rate rise of 110 zlotys which was equal to 8% of the minimum salary in the hospital. Going forwards the union will not agree to no further strikes, and are at the moment in talks with the hospital bosses about another 5% wage increase.

The employer is prepared to talk about further pay rises, but they want to give more to the doctors. The union has therefore refused offers like this in order to fight for a fairer deal for lower paid workers.

Multiple tactics and more victories

During the strike the workers looked for alternative means of protest. With the support of other local syndicalist groups, W.I. occupied offices at the Bielsko-Biala city council building (including the head of the council’s office) about 1 month after the strike ballot, at 2pm on a Friday afternoon. They had with them a few journalists and a video camera. They audaciously had even more demands to put on the table, including:

• A guarantee of no layoffs at the hospital
• A guarantee of no reduction in beds at the hospital
• No-one to be made redundant from the hospital until 2015

The activists had got plans of the building, and split up and entered the council house uninvited simultaneously at different entrances. They found food laid on and made themselves comfortable. Their first visitor was a secretary who engaged politely with them - as she tried to get rid of them. She said that the head of the council was away and asked the activists to move to a conference room. They refused, saying that they were not going anywhere until the head of the council was back. Unrolling their sleeping bags showed the council employees that they were serious.

One group spotted the head of council in the building, with a bunch of flowers and a bottle of vodka... they mentioned that they had seen him and 15 minutes later council staff stated that he was ‘just back’ (the place that he had allegedly been at was 80km away...) Eventually the head of the council did speak to the activists, and they filmed the conversation. The activists were shocked to witness the head of the council’s sheer ignorance of the healthcare services that on paper he was responsible for. He was not even able to say the number of hospitals under his jurisdiction.

On film he declared there would be no reduction in beds (contradicting what the new hospital director had said in a radio interview – that a reduction in beds was needed).

Soon after this significant victory two union activists from the Bielsko-Biala mental hospital were summoned for questioning by the local police about their union activities. There was no formal background to the case - this was an attempt by the local authorities, who operated like a clique, to threaten and intimidate them. The arrestees gave up no information during what amounted to an illegal interrogation, and were released with no further consequences following.

A fearsome reputation

Workers’ Initiative have occupied other target sites in support of workers disputes and found it to be an extremely effective way of getting demands met – better than demonstrations alone.

Recently a not-very-militant nurses’ organisation asked W.I. to organise a demonstration outside the city hall in support of workers at another Bielsko-Biala hospital. The nurses came from a local children’s hospital and were in conflict with their employer over pay. The protesters were told once again that the head of the council was ‘away’....so they asked for him to return instantly as he had managed to do before... The demonstration became noisier and magically he did appear. He asked for a delegation to come inside but they refused his request, reminding him they had already been inside, and they preferred to talk outside in the street. The council were scared of being occupied again so they made the nurses an upfront offer of a pay rise, purely because of the demo. The council wanted this to be a secret deal and it was not officially published. But W.I. got hold of the papers and released them to show that fighting hard leads to success.

We’re a happy family?

One of the main planks of theory in Solidarity magazine is anti-partnership, so I am confidently assuming that readers are already onboard with this stance. But the story of what W.I. have achieved in Poland is an incredible illustration of this argument, one that we can both learn from and show to our colleagues when they run up against the disheartening limitations of ‘consultation’.

Clearly the U.K. is not a similar environment to Poland. We have different histories. Here in the 21st century pitched street battles between workers and police are not commonplace - as they are in Poland, neither are authority figures literally frightened into submission by the force of demonstrations. However the uncompromising attitude of W.I. is universal, and can be translated.

The word ‘partnership’ implies two equal parties, with an equal input into decision making. This does not exist in our workplaces. A frustrating phrase I hear a lot from other reps as a UNISON steward in the NHS Blood & Transplant service (NHSBT) is ‘management have the right to manage’. This is true and means that ultimately, following token consultation, management have the right to do exactly what they like and ignore the union’s wishes.

We all understand that members are most mobilised and proud when the union is active and fighting. This is when recruitment is highest. Joint meetings on the other hand are draining for reps and invisible to the membership. Issues can roll on for months as the employer and the reps fence with each other, making fractional changes to policies. When one branch of UNISON in NHSBT felt they had been screwed by management one time too many, they withdrew from national joint meetings in protest and other reps across the service accused them of denying their members a voice. There is a debate to be had with those reps that fear that by not sitting around the table we are left with no influence. The massive gains of W.I. show that in fact combat is what it takes to get the juiciest fruit. Within the myth of ‘partnership’ the union is always the subordinate. In a free fight, a tug of war, the strongest opponent wins. Without the skewed rules of so-called partnership, the day comes when it is the union in the strongest position, and the employer has to concede total defeat on an issue. This builds further confidence.

On top of this, U.K. trade unionism today is very much tied to the walk-out work stoppage as a sole tactic of industrial action, neglecting the complete range of imaginative activities that are possible, including force projection by service users and supporters of the workers.  Strikes can be unpopular as they create hardship and potentially affect those other than the employer - hard to sustain and with mixed success rates. Workers’ Initiative is an eye-opening case study involving varied effective and unorthodox tactics to talk about with fellow stewards. We need to expand our arsenal of actions, and while some stewards and activists know this, it is not a message that the leadership of UNISON in healthcare will broadcast.

Workers’ Initiative website: http://www.ozzip.pl/english