ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the two paradoxes among the institutional actors, such as trade unions, and organizations that are characteristically the critics of capitalism in Poland. The trade unions have found themselves in a difficult position in attempting to respond to these problems as protectors of the workers because they took a major role in stimulating the whole process of transformation. Two important events played a key role in creating the current position of the trade unions in Poland. The first was the emergence of the Independent and Self-governing Trade Union, Solidarity, in 1980; and the second was the Round Table in 1989. In the first partially free parliamentary elections (1989), Solidarity was the major winner. Members of Solidarity, or people recommended by it, took nearly 100 per cent of the free seats which means 35 per cent of the total in the lower chamber of Polish parliament—Sejm—and 99 per cent of seats in the higher chamber—Senat.
