ABSTRACT
National planning is defunct and economies are taken to have an importance only at the local/regional level and/or the global level. The enforced opening up of the Polish economy in the 1970s and '80s to the predations of international capital had important effects on both the Polish ruling class and Solidarity. This chapter examines the process of transformation of the Polish economy, concentrating in particular on the experience of two major workplaces: Wawel, a confectionery company in Krakow which has taken the worker-management buyout route to privatization in a sector dominated by foreign direct investment (FDI) from western transnational corporations. There are a number of factors contributing to declining union membership. The first is that much FDI and small and medium sized enterprises are hostile to unions and Solidarity has had trouble recruiting in both these sectors. Some parachuted out of former State Owned Enterprises, hiving off profitable sections which often existed very profitably on the edge of illegality.
