By Maria Wilczek
This article is published in partnership with Reporting Democracy, a division of Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), and first appeared here.
The sandwiches were stacked, the posters were up. The mining unions in the Silesian town of Ruda Śląska had been preparing for the big protest for days.
Ruda Śląska in southern Poland is home to 130,000 people and three coal mines slated for swift shutdown. Around the city posters called on townsfolk to protest against the closures: “Save Silesia! The government and European Union’s program will annihilate Silesia!”
The prime minister had sent a delegation to negotiate a timeline for reforms. By Friday, 25 September, talks had already been dragging on for three days. To turn up the pressure, hundreds of miners sealed themselves off underground in protest. Proud displays of their makeshift bedding and tinned-food menus spread through social media.
At the headquarters of the Sierpień 80 mining union that coordinated the protest, the phone was ringing off the hook that morning. Its boss, Bogusław Ziętek, sat at the shiny atramentous desk in his plain-walled office in Katowice.
“This is boorishness and contempt for the people of Silesia. The prime minister should be here himself to negotiate their fate,” he said. “Five million people live here. We’re talking about the total destruction of an industry employing hundreds of thousands of people.”
Poland currently produces an estimated 90% of the EU’s hard coal. The fuel powers 74% of Poland’s domestic energy production. However, in recent years the country has come under increasing pressure from rising costs and the EU’s climate agenda to wean itself off coal.
In its quest for reform, successive Polish governments have come up against a formidable adversary: the trade unions, which have taken up the mantle to defend the industry, shepherding its 90,000 workers into frequent protests and creating a narrative about their needs.
Ziętek put it this way: “The European Union has no understanding of local realities. Mining is not just a profession, it is a way of life. This is like the natives of the Amazon seeing their forests chopped down and not being able to adjust to their new environment.”
“We need to transition economically and mentally. We need more time,” he continued. He is concerned about finding well-paid local jobs for tens of thousands of former miners, but also about the unravelling of the tight-knit worker communities that exist around the mines.
Every few minutes, Ziętek was interrupted by his phone ringing: “So it’s called off?” he probed one caller. The big protest in Ruda Śląska is cancelled at the last minute. The unions have just struck a landmark deal for the government to subsidise coal mines until their closure in 2049 and no compulsory redundancies, with workers moving to mines that remain open until they retire.
Poland will close its coal mines by 2049, under a landmark agreement concluded today between the government and unions.
The state will guarantee continued employment for miners until retirement, or severance packages in the case of earlier layoffs https://t.co/myzb0WjEAP
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) September 25, 2020
“Sometimes the threat of a protest is enough for us to move forward. It’s the reputation we’ve worked for over the years,” said Ziętek.
Forceful argument
Over the years, miners have proved to be fearsome protesters. On one occasion in 2005, some 5,500 miners charged at the police outside the economy ministry in Warsaw. The protestors – some of whom had been drinking – tore off slabs of pavements and threw firecrackers at the police, who retaliated with tear gas and water cannons. The government gave in.
“We never wanted to hurt policemen, but things happened fast,” said Wacław Czerkawski, head of the Silesian branch of the All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions (OPZZ), who led the riot. On Friday, though, he was sitting at the negotiating table with the government.
Czerkawski wolfed down a sandwich at his desk in what was the first moment he’d had to himself all day. “Why did the talks take place today? Because the miners started their underground protests. The prime minister immediately sent an authorised delegation because he knew that things were heating up.”
He revels in his stories of past protests. He recalls fondly how presidents and prime ministers altered plans to meet with his gang of unionists. He gasps at a memory of 2015, when thousands of miners took off their helmets and hit them against the concrete pavement outside the Polish parliament: “the effect was unbelievable, unrepeatable!”
“Miners have always been able to use the argument of force when dialogue did not bring the intended results,” noted Czerkawski.
On the other side of the barricade in 2015, former economy minister Janusz Piechociński recalled: “The strikes were of unprecedented size.” He remembers regular union drop-ins to his office, offering “half a year of peace” from demonstrations in exchange for changes at the helm of state-owned companies. “It takes a lot of political courage to say ‘no’ to miners.”
As a result, Polish governments since the 1990s repeatedly caved. In July, Deputy Prime Minister Jacek Sasin travelled to Silesia with a reform plan for the sector but retreated after pressure from miners. “We believe it is impossible to implement these proposals without the full approval of trade unions,” concluded Sasin’s spokesman.
During earlier strikes this year, the government led by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, which has championed a heady mix of protectionist rhetoric and generous handouts, also agreed to another pay rise of 6% and promised to limit coal imports to prop up domestic sales.
“Global prices are tumbling, and yet miners are pushing for wage rises. It’s complete madness,” Piechociński told BIRN.
An official report found that even as productivity slumped by 2% at the Polish Mining Group (PGG), the largest hard coal producer in the EU, the salaries of its workers rose by 13% between 2016 and 2018. “Through government passivity, miner wages no longer reflect the market but rather political declarations,” Piechociński said.
Whole ecosystem
Miners have been able to rally thanks to the sprawling structures of their unions, of which there were 240 separate ones in 2014. Membership among miners surpasses 100%, compared with just round 12% in the economy as a whole.
“Unions dull the blade aimed at miners,” said Ziętek, a die-hard unionist. “Other professions have been told that unions are unnecessary and parasitic. And now they have no collective labour agreements, no guarantees. They go to the slaughter at their own request.”
Few places tell the story of unionist appeal as well as the pavement leading up to the Halemba mine in Ruda Śląska. Here, five rows of union announcement boards compete for the attention of miners going to and leaving their shifts. Each is covered in offers: a 250-zloty marriage bonus, bike discounts for members, a 50-zloty birthday voucher, or a microwave lottery.
The posters also carry a whiff of demagoguery. “Will you go on the dole? Emigrate in search of bread? What fate will your family face?” asks one. “You think climate policy is about clean air? No! It’s all about big business and big money,” explains another.
Union bosses also have a stake in the continued existence of the industry. They alone cost PGG an estimated €6 million each year, according to 2014 figures, with pay-checks estimated at €3,600 per month. A nexus of contractors – often linked with unions – also feed on the sprawling industrial workplaces.
“Union organisations themselves need time to secure an existence after mines close. All mines are overgrown with small businesses owned by union leaders – everything from inns to laundry services. These hire a multitude of people, and provide for whole families,” according to an energy expert who asked not to be named.
When coal mines die
The defunct extraction towers looming above Ruda Śląska are a reminder that its coal industry is already in retreat. Of its six mines in the 1990s, just three remain open. According to government plans leaked in July, those three were slated to shut as soon as 2020. Unsurprisingly, the underground protests of late September began here.
Grzegorz has just come up to the ground after taking part in Friday’s underground strike. His blue eyes are heavily contoured with remaining charcoal. “When protests started, we knew it was one for all and all for one,” he said.
He believes that mining is the last profession with enough clout to “follow through” with strikes, and notes that to keep up morale, union bosses sent down sour rye soup and hearty cabbage stew. “I love my job. It’s what my grandfather and great-grandfather did. You could say it was suckled with my mother’s milk,” he said.
Meanwhile, another miner, Maciej, regrets his hasty decision to join the profession. Years ago, he accepted a university scholarship from a coal company to study mechanical engineering in nearby Gliwice, promising to come work for them after he graduated. However, he too supports the ongoing protests: “The government’s proposed changes are simply too fast. I would like to change my job, but I can also relate to those protesting.”
Maciej believes both miners and workers in related services will have trouble finding local jobs. Meeting the pay requirements of miners in other industries will be a tall order. The 41,000 miners employed by PGG are paid around 7,600 zloty per month (1,670 euros) – well above the national average of around 5,000 zloty.
“It’s hard to imagine a more mining-oriented city,” the deputy mayor of Ruda Śląska, Michal Pieronczyk, told BIRN.
However, he said the city is very slowly moving away from coal. “There once was a mining school at each mine, but one after another they closed. There are still some mining faculties offered at other schools, but since graduates can no longer be sure of employment, these subjects are not as popular as they used to be,” he said.
Other townsfolk worry that the collapse of the mining sector will also drag down tethered local businesses. “It’s no secret that this entire town caters to the mines,” said Basia at her flower shop, a 15-minute walk from Halemba. “It’s not just five people working down there, you know.”
Several locals bring up the case of Wałbrzych, another Polish mining town, which languished after its coal industry was put to bed in the 1990s. Since then, miners have started digging for coal illegally in precarious wood beam-supported “poor man’s shafts”.
Poland’s swing state
Populous and politically divided, Silesia has the makings of Poland’s swing state. Governments of both left and right have pandered to mining interests to attract undecided voters.
During the latest parliamentary campaign in 2019, all major political parties included chapters on Silesia in their manifestos. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki chose to run from the province’s largest city of Katowice – rather than Warsaw or his hometown of Wroclaw – and moved the annual military parade that year to Silesia.
In January, the PiS-allied president, Andrzej Duda, was greeted with a standing ovation at a beer hall feast organised by a local union, where he was hailed as “First Miner of the Republic”. He went on to win a slim majority of 51% in Ruda Śląska in the July presidential run-off.
After the full-throttled praise of their profession ahead of elections, many miners now feel cheated. “Miners believed PiS,” said Ziętek. “Up until recently, the president was running around Silesia and picking up every single vote he could. Since then, he has fallen silent. It turns out that PiS politicians had brazenly lied to the people of Silesia.”
Moreover, for those who remember mining’s heyday, it is painful to see the industry crumble.
After World War Two, coal mines helped haul Poland’s economy out of the wreckage. Until the 1980s, the country was one of the world’s five largest producers. At the time, coal exports supplied up to 80% of sorely needed foreign currency. At its peak, the industry employed almost half a million Poles and amassed privileges in the form of holiday cash bonuses, various family allowances, shorter working hours and earlier retirement.
Social status accompanied economic clout. Poland’s communist authorities praised miners as exemplary members of the working class, toiling away in precarious conditions. Later governments would also recognise miners as champions of their own causes after they played a large role in the bloody protests of the 1980s, which ultimately contributed to the toppling of the communist regime in 1989.
Light at the end of the tunnel
After years of mixed messages, it seems that Poland’s government is finally gearing up to take on the industry’s problems. The agreement of 25 September to close down all mines by 2049 signals that breakthrough.
“For the first time ever, union representatives signed a document acknowledging that the coal industry is to be liquidated,” said Robert Tomaszewski, an energy expert at Polityka Insight, a think tank in Warsaw.
Outdated extraction technology and the EU’s push for greener fuels is making coal simply untenable. The EU’s emission trading scheme, which forces companies to pay for their carbon dioxide emissions, has raised the cost of coal-fired energy, while many Polish businesses have switched to importing cheaper fuel from Russia, Colombia, Australia and Mozambique. As a result, Poland’s expanding surplus of unsold coal reached 7.9 million tonnes in July.
Now the coronavirus pandemic has brought the ailing sector to the precipice. After mass outbreaks in mines forced PGG to halt production for weeks, the group’s losses plunged to 123 million euros in the first half of 2020. Next year, demand for coal is expected to further drop by a tenth of Poland’s annual hard coal production.
Yet, over a horizon of 29 years, the latest agreement is mostly symbolic. A proviso for the entire deal is that the European Commission agrees to subsidise Polish mines. “It is possible that the EU will agree to extended subsidies, but will dictate terms for earlier mine shutdowns,” said Tomaszewski.
Talks with the European Commission are expected to start in the coming days. However, if the government fails to get approval for aid for Polish mines, it may “resort to abrupt actions, such as closures without offering miners alternative work at the risk of social unrest,” a deputy assets minister responsible for the mining sector told Reuters.
While EU funds for the economic and social transition are still on the table, a share of the miners have a shot at alternative jobs in other budding energy projects.
Offshore wind and solar projects have been springing up in Poland, often at former coal sites. The state-owned energy group Tauron is building solar farms in several locations, including its former Silesian coal power plant in Jaworzno near Katowice. On September 24, Poland’s largest brown coal producer announced that it would transform a large open-pit mine into the country’s largest solar farm in the next year. The company has said that the project is also meant as a way to provide alternative jobs to its former coal workers.
So there are future-proof projects and money that could help ameliorate the effects of the mine closures – a report from ClientEarth and think tank WiseEuropa said between 2013 and 2018 alone, the country spent as much as €6.8 billion on bailouts to forms of energy Poland has traditionally relied on. But for that to happen, miners will need to return to the negotiating table at least one more time.
Image credits: BIRN (main image), Maria Wilczek (all other images)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
