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The end of communism is nigh

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Strikes don't pose a threat
Jan Józef Lipski Social activist
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At the moment, strikes aren't posing a serious problem. By that I mean that most working people have decided to wait. Every day the newspapers print new stories, but this isn't large-scale and luckily, we can see that usually the few strikes that occur are by groups of people who are so extremely disabled that it's not surprising they are trying to gain something for themselves. But it would become a problem if this was on a larger scale and if the strikers were from the middle income bracket. Middle income in our situation – it means it's very bad because a person who finds himself in that category in Poland is a pauper compared with the middle income bracket in the rest of Europe. Their monthly earnings in dollars range from just over 10 to 20 odd, so putting aside all the economic oddities in the way this country functions, this really doesn't amount to much. I hope that for a while, this situation will stay as it is, there will be no mass strike movement, however if steps aren't taken to introduce laws and to put them into practice before people grow impatient, things will get very bad indeed.

Strajki w tej chwili nie stanowią zbyt poważnego problemu. To znaczy większość ludzi pracy zdecydowała się odczekać. Co dzień gazety przynoszą jakieś nowe wiadomości, ale skala tego nie jest wielka i na szczęście widać, że przeważnie te nieliczne strajki, które powstają... widać, że to strajkują grupy, które znajdują się w stanie już tak znacznego upośledzenia, że trudno byłoby... trudno się im dziwić, że coś usiłują dla siebie w tym momencie wywojować. Ale problem byłby wtedy, gdyby to miało większą skalę liczebną i gdyby strajkowały grupy ludności, które są w średniej sytuacji finansowej. Średniej to znaczy, jak na nasze… to znaczy bardzo złej, bo człowiek w Polsce, który znajduje się w średniej sytuacji, to w stosunku do Europy jest nędzarzem. Te zarobki przeliczane na dolary, miesięczne, to jest od kilkunastu do dwudziestu paru dolarów, więc pomijając wszystkie dziwactwa ekonomiczne funkcjonowania tego kraju, jest to niewiele lepiej, niż wynika z takiego przeliczenia. I mam nadzieję, że przez pewien czas będzie się ta sytuacja utrzymywała, że do masowego ruchu strajkowego nie dojdzie, natomiast jeżeli nie zdąży się uczynić jakichś kroków ustawodawczych i już wdrażających w życie te ustawy, nim ludzie się zniecierpliwią, no to będzie bardzo źle.

Jan Józef Lipski (1926-1991) was one of Poland's best known political activists. He was also a writer and a literary critic. As a soldier in the Home Army (Armia Krajowa), he fought in the Warsaw Uprising. In 1976, following worker protests, he co-founded the Workers' Defence Committee (KOR). His active opposition to Poland's communist authorities led to his arrest and imprisonment on several occasions. In 1987, he re-established and headed the Polish Socialist Party. Two years later, he was elected to the Polish Senate. He died in 1991 while still in office. For his significant work, Lipski was honoured with the Cross of the Valorous (Krzyż Walecznych), posthumously with the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1991) and with the highest Polish decoration, the Order of the White Eagle (2006).

Listeners: Marcel Łoziński Jacek Petrycki

Film director Marcel Łoziński was born in Paris in 1940. He graduated from the Film Directing Department of the National School of Film, Television and Theatre in Łódź in 1971. In 1994, he was nominated for an American Academy Award and a European Film Academy Award for the documentary, 89 mm from Europe. Since 1995, he has been a member of the American Academy of Motion Picture Art and Science awarding Oscars. He lectured at the FEMIS film school and the School of Polish Culture of Warsaw University. He ran documentary film workshops in Marseilles. Marcel Łoziński currently lectures at Andrzej Wajda’s Master School for Film Directors. He also runs the Dragon Forum, a European documentary film workshop.

Cinematographer Jacek Petrycki was born in Poznań, Poland in 1948. He has worked extensively in Poland and throughout the world. His credits include, for Agniezka Holland, Provincial Actors (1979), Europe, Europe (1990), Shot in the Heart (2001) and Julie Walking Home (2002), for Krysztof Kieslowski numerous short films including Camera Buff (1980) and No End (1985). Other credits include Journey to the Sun (1998), directed by Jesim Ustaoglu, which won the Golden Camera 300 award at the International Film Camera Festival, Shooters (2000) and The Valley (1999), both directed by Dan Reed, Unforgiving (1993) and Betrayed (1995) by Clive Gordon both of which won the BAFTA for best factual photography. Jacek Petrycki is also a teacher and a filmmaker.

Tags: Poland, Europe

Duration: 2 minutes, 2 seconds

Date story recorded: October 1989

Date story went live: 15 March 2011