Unionism and Workers' Strategies in Capitalist Transformation: The Polish Case Reconsidered

This article reassesses recent debates on labour weakness in Central and Eastern Europe after the end of `actually existing socialism', examining the relationship between workers' life strategies and the development of trade unionism in Poland. Biographical interviews with workers reveal three distinct patterns of coping with social change, structural conditions and their relationship to workers' activity in unions. It is suggested that recent signs of union renewal can only be sustained by re-linking the union agenda with the workers' diversified and pragmatized life strategies.