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Employment structures, employee attitudes and workplace resistance in neoliberal Poland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Piotr Żuk
Piotr Żuk*
Affiliation:
University of Wrocław, Poland
*
Piotr Żuk, Sociology, Uniwersytet Wroclawski, Koszarowa 3, 51-149 Wrocław, Poland. Email: pzuk@uni.wroc.pl
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Abstract

During the past quarter century of neoliberal social, economic and political upheaval in Poland, the structure of workplaces has changed, and so have changes in worker attitudes to workplace and social solidarity. This article explores the links between changes to organisational and employment structures and shifts in worker attitudes, focusing on the implications of attitudinal shifts for the capacity for organised workplace resistance. It documents a loss of collective identity and a growth of individualism and social distrust. The analysis is based on publicly available economic and social statistics and the author’s own qualitative and quantitative research, drawn in part from computer-aided interviews in de-industrialising Lower Silesia. Evidence is provided that the extent and intensity of attitudinal shifts have varied according to changed workplace structures, based on privatisation and organisational size, and especially on the accompanying changes in workplace culture and climate. Increased individualism, based on formal decollectivisation, has been accompanied by attitudinal individualism and distrust of other people and social institutions. As a result, declining capacity for workplace resistance and an increased sense of powerlessness have increased workers’ susceptibility to right-wing propaganda.

Keywords

J82J83J21De-collectivisationemployment structureindividualismPolandright-wing propagandasocial solidaritytrustunion strategyworkplace climateworkplace cultureworkplace resistanceworkplace size
Type
Workers and neoliberalism
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , March 2017 , pp. 91 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2017

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