New infrastructure minister, Marek Pol, has just walked into a hive of problems on the railways. The first problem is the financial state of the national carrier PKP. Point two is that his own political party, the SLD, is complaining about reforms made by PKP management. Point three is that the unions are protesting about changes in management and are prepared to strike to push through their opinion.
Despite promises by Marek Pol that management changes will not be revolutionary, the unions are not happy and Stanisław Kogut, heading the union says that all means at his disposal will be used to protest.
Stanisław Kogut points out that restructuring has gone through including that of reducing the work force from 460,000 to 165,000. This restructuring has seen PKP changed into a holding and the unions are worried that the government, despite election promises, may seek to return to central control.
The unions say that they are opposed to financing the passenger sector from profits made by cargo.
Clearly a train strike will be a major blow to the government from three sides. The first is the obvious social consequences, the second is the support of its coalition partner and the third is the response likely to come from those financial institutions that have kept the PKP afloat. One banker commented that the financial sector was waiting for a ministerial decision concerning changes with the management of PKP, as with the current board nothing worthwhile is possible.