How workers' self-government works in Poland

Abstract

The Polish socialist regime is ruled by the principles of state property concerning the means of production, and of control planning and democratic centralism. Workers' self-government is specially appreciated there on account of its implications as to the political, social and economic fields. In the political field the institutions of the «workers' democracy» are considered as a connection platform between the State Party and the working-class, a platform where the Party's policy is supposed to be brought face to face with the masses' attitudes. In the social field, the «workers' democracy» is understood as a means of destroying the alienation through work, of overcoming the negative consequences from the division of labour at the enterprise and of avoiding that the manager may underestimate the social aspects of the enterpriseworking. In the economic field, the workers' self-government institutions are reckoned a factor of improving the produtive activity at the enterprise. In this article one begins with describing the origins and the ideological bases of those institutions, the place for self-government among Polish social and political organizations, the structure and attributions of the self-government organs. Next one studies the practice of workers' participation in different domains, as well as a certain number of the most significant effects from self-government.