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Polish version

Not Bad but Expensive

The Polish membership in the European Union requires quite naturally a formulation of an opening balance sheet, or demonstration of our current work conditions and solutions in that area.

The political will of joining the EU had been declared even by the first Prime Minister of the Third Republic, Mr. Tadeusz Mazowiecki, while a specific legal and technical language regarding our accession started to be used at least ten years ago. The Polish law of testing and certification of 1993 is evidence of that fact.

Even at that time, being aware of the historical imperative and benefits of our participation in the Community, we claimed that we would not join unprepared. In our article on “The Conquering Steps towards EEC" (Atest 6/92), Prof. Henryk Korniewicz mocked a sudden reversal of his superiors who replaced overnight Russian translations with English ones. Prof. Korniewicz, a member of e.g. American scholarly societies, wrote that many solutions developed by COMICON represented a class being at least similar to Western European regulations, but the former were not compatible with the latter. Presently, we have to modify them, however, with respect for our own achievements.

Progressive Standards

During the socialist era, the Polish labour protection system consisted in demonstrating progressive solutions, e.g. in the form of the highest allowable concentration and intensity standards, which in fact were not often observed. We had fewer standards than in EEC countries. Whenever standards were not available, it was impossible to adopt criteria for work condition audits. Examinations required for the establishment of standards were expensive and, for that reason, we should have used the norms developed in EEC (EU). However, our scientific policy was different: we should have own standards in place rather.

Consequently, the effects of hazardous factors, especially chemical ones, were not closely monitored, although the “hazard bouquet" was basically known in the case of heavy industry plants that dominated in Poland until mid-1980's. The concentrations of carbon, sulphur and nitrogen oxides, or hydrogen sulphide, aromatic hydrocarbons and basic fly ashes adequately characterised the levels of workers' exposure.

You will Recognise Them by Their Effects

Unfortunately, there are no common and generally acceptable measures for the evaluation of the effects of exposure to the operation of chemical, physical, or biological hazards. Occupational diseases are pathologies related to work conditions, but only those that have been listed (quite arbitrarily) by bureaucrats in a given country are.

As a result, it is hard to compare occupational disease statistics. The international public opinion agrees in fact in one case: the numbers of work accidents, especially mortal ones, constitute a good reflection of work conditions with respect to hazardous factors. Let's, therefore, present here comparisons of the frequency of accidents in Poland and in the EU countries. In my article on “Better than other Europeans" (Atest 3/97), I wrote, based on the Eurostat data: “...Without the agricultural sector, our employment figures are the closest to those of Spain. However, the number of work accidents in Spain is eleven times higher, and the number of mortal accidents is nearly twice higher in Spain than in Poland. The comparison of the mortal accident rate indices (i.e. per 10,000 employees) proves that Poland is in the seventh position." That concerned a comparison to the EU countries.

In the 2001 report of the Chief Labour Inspector, we also found some statistical comparisons related to the mortal accident rates in Poland and EU. The data were quite similar. In the building sector, the accident rate was higher in Poland by ca. 15%, while in transportation it was lower by ca. 30% etc. Of course, such comparisons were obvious simplifications due to diverse economic structures in the respective countries. Nevertheless, talking about the most serious hazards, the work conditions in our country were found not to be much different from those of the Western European average.

Neophytes' Zeal

Our opening to new ideas being conducive of the improvement of work conditions caused that, some time in 1994, we founded in Poland companies, first foreign and later domestic ones, which proposed implementation of work safety management systems or certification. Dozens of companies implemented such systems owing to the National Labour Inspectorate's financial support. Later, the systems became fashionable, especially in connection with the privatisation of Polish state-owned enterprises. Work safety management systems were included in Total Quality Management packages.

That approach, although useful, assumed such proportions that even such management specialists as Prof. Zygmunt Niczyporuk (“Grain or Chaff", Atest 1/2002), pointed out the results of “mechanical" and uncritical development of safety management systems. Niczyporuk's analysis indicated that implementation of such systems sometimes resulted in the execution of activities that increased psychological stress, contributing to the frequency of accidents at work.

And that was not only a Polish experience. In Atest 8/99, we published an article on the “European Strategy", with my presentation of the results of workshop sessions that had taken place in Amsterdam as part of the Work Life 2000 Project. We found that system certification became less and less voluntary in the European Union. Many companies do not want to, but have to obtain suitable certificates to withstand competition.

Some workshop participants observed that they dealt with a hierarchic system where stress was put on the control of behaviour rather than hazards, especially the long-term ones. According to the participants' opinions, there was no remedy for all the companies to ensure good levels of work conditions. The best solution would be voluntary involvement of people from all levels of management, as well as regular workers. For example, research on near escapes or quasi accidents may be either an arduous idea of “those guys on top", or become an acceptable activity intended for the elimination of poor sides of job organisation.

The Government Spends Money

In my opinion, Poland even presently belongs to excessive welfare states, which phrase usually refers rather to much richer countries, not only because the number of disability allowances related to the general health condition is twice as high in comparison to that in the EU, but also because we operate a very expensive model of industrial safety and hygiene operation. I mean a kind of safeguard or a custom resulting from the principles of the previous system: we will not save on safety any more.

The institutions which have been active in the safety area do not constitute a unified system. Some of them duplicate their activities. For instance, each year, the Minister of Labour presents his report on work conditions in the country to the government. However, the Minister is a commander without an army: he does not employ any audit authority, and has to approach various other institutions, e.g. the Office of Technical Inspection, the State Mining Authority, or especially the National Labour Inspectorate to obtain data for his report. Later, the Chief Labour Inspector submits his report on his activities and work conditions to the Parliament. Part of his report is identical with the government report.

Bureaucratic inertia is also characteristic for our authorities, although it was Parkinson who defined it in the most precise manner. Here is an example: during many years, speech-organ ailments belonged to the most frequent occupational diseases. In 1997, there were 3,500 such cases, for the total number of 11,700 occupational disease cases. Let's analyse this example.

Speech-organ ailments are listed as occupational diseases only in three countries. They are identified almost exclusively among teachers. European teachers worked in more or less the same conditions, but it was our government who paid disability allowances related to occupational diseases. It paid without consideration, although statistics were alarming and calling for prevention. After several waves of comments, also in our Atest, it was found during pilot studies conducted on 40% of teacher-college students that their speech-organ condition was certain to turn them into the occupationally disabled within a few years. There were no programmes for voice emission studies, teacher-college student screening, or equipping halls with loudspeaker systems. Only one leaflet was published on voice production, but its circulation was very small.

Another weakness of our labour protection system is either underappreciation or even absence of health rehabilitation. That issue should constitute a great challenge to Polish social politicians.

Conclusions for Conclusions' Sake

For several years, we have had the Government Strategic Programme (which is presently a long-term government programme). The amounts allocated for the GSP (entailing several hundreds of tasks) indicated the richness of our state. However, specific tasks did not result from any economic analysis. If it was the case, the reduction of speech-organ ailments would become one of priorities. It was not. Although the number of such ailments has radically decreased by now, from 3,500 in 1997 to less than 2,500 in 2000, to 1,680 in 2001 and to 1,225 in 2002, the excellent effects were obtained rather by administrative decisions: new guidelines for qualification doctors were implemented.

The Polish science employs talented people, e.g. in occupational medicine. We employ several dozens of international organisation experts. The government programme fails, however, to assume many specific and significant problems of labour protection in our industrial facilities. It was structured with respect to the economic needs of research or scholarly institutions. There is no system for “rassroot" proposal collection of issues or co-reviewing of research results.

Even useful studies are often concluded with publication of books or leaflets in small numbers of copies, instead of dozens of thousands (as examples, I mean studies on transportation works, computer operation, or office work). Dissemination of research results is not a priority in our government programme.

The Power of Statistics

The Catholic Niedziela weekly reminded us of a quote from Lenin: “Socialism means reporting, socialism means reporting again." If that is the case, the Polish National Labour Inspectorate (PIP) is the most socialist institution. I wrote about it many times before: inspectors with excellent education (at least graduate studies) are often involved in examining how small businesses keep order in their workshops. Such facilities are audited by specialists with lower education (and lower salaries) in many EU countries. The Polish National Labour Inspectorate (PIP) is located very high in the power structure, higher than anywhere else (it reports directly to the Parliament). For many years, it has assumed the number of inspections and legal means application being the only criteria of its operation.

Search for better indicators leads to creation of artificial problems with the intention to improve the institution's statistical image. PIP management is lacking courage to present a different conception of institutional operation. I devoted at least several articles to those issues.

Why is it so Bad when it is so Good

Our industrial safety inspection service is the best educated in Europe. That conclusion comes from the Atest 2/2003 article on the “Qualifications of European Safety Inspectors." The average Polish safety inspector holds at least secondary education supplemented by a post-secondary school of industrial safety. About 20% of them completed graduate studies, plus about 5% post-graduate ones according to my estimates. That makes them European elite if we take into consideration that one can become a safety inspector in a highly industrialised EU country even with vocational education.

The main problem in this case consists in the unwanted employer's obligation to maintain mandatory safety inspection service. The majority of employers do not expect much from such a service, including especially economic justification of its operation in a specific company.

Social Partnership: a Counter Reaction

In Poland of the 1980's, similarly to other countries of “realistic socialism", 95% of workers belonged to non-pluralistic trade unions. Later, “Solidarity" appeared in our country, followed by other trade unions, and still later on... we developed a distance to any kind of representative institutions operating in our companies. The amendments of the Polish Labour Code, implemented several years ago in compliance with the European trend to build partnership, introduced the obligation to establish labour safety commissions. That idea has ended in a fiasco at least now: such commissions, even if established, fail to be active. Why so? In fact, they were a complete novelty after the previous labour-protection commissions working in medium-sized and large enterprises. I think that such reactions of both employers and employees have similar grounds. They are counter reactions to the actions often treated as superficial.

Recently, the clause under discussion was changed yet again. The labour-safety commissions must be established in the companies which employ more than 250 workers, not 100 as it was the case before. According to the “WlE Report 11" of 2004, 15% of workers belong to trade unions in Poland, while 87.5% in Denmark or 39.8% in Austria. Maybe it will take some time to be convinced about the idea of trade-union partnership.

We in the Union

When joining the European Union on 1 May 2004, we should be aware of our strengths and weaknesses. Our strength is certainly well educated people in the institutions that work for labour protection, similarly to the dedication and will to use the European Union experiences.

Our weakness is an incongruent labour protection system, or rather a collection of overlapping competences of various institutions. Our employers do not appreciate labour protection, since they treat it as a form of tax which has to be paid in connection with business activities. Nobody believes that “Safety Pays." We may learn cost calculation from some of the EU members, and that will allow us to be convinced that industrial safety is not only a social benefit.

I write these words being aware that labour protection specialists may have critical remarks about their own national legal solutions or practices as well.

The same or very similar products marked with the CE symbol will enforce our similar conduct, service stereotypes or technical culture with time. Things will become similar, and maybe Polish safety specialists will start to work in other countries. Presently, however, we still have a lot to do back home.

Today, we obtain a possibility of verification of various detailed solutions in fairly similar conditions regulated by EU Directives. It is true that such Directives are executed under various legal systems, or by various institutional structures that control labour protection. However, we are facing an exceptional area for the exchange of ideas, monitoring of social experiments and checking regulation effectiveness. We may attain the same or even more with the same costs. And do so in a more rational manner, which is an important offering for Poland.

Jerzy Knyziak
Editor-in-Chief

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