One could rub one’s eyes in surprise when Civic Platform bragged about the courtroom victory against PiS in the electoral process, which unemployment was not 15 percent in Tusk’s time, but ‘only’ 14.4 percent. The PO personnel quickly realized it was a propaganda error and two bad excuses were made for the PO-PSL government.
The first is the high unemployment level (18%) during the PiS reign, but… in January 2006, so after that just two months after the victorious election.
The second argument was advanced by Donald Tusk’s irreplaceable acolyte, Alicja Defratyka, who said she was responsible for the unemployment…. demographics. Because there were more working-age Poles under the PO, so – according to the liberals – the more people, the more unemployed. Of course, she has not counted the currently working immigrants and refugees from Ukraine (and there are hundreds of thousands of them) who somehow come to Poland and have a job.
Memories from Tusk’s time
But when you juggle numbers, you don’t get the whole truth. And high unemployment is not only a lack of money, but also a lack of dignity. Readers who were asked to recall the times of high unemployment in Poland remembered this very poignantly. I allow myself to publish some of these statements.
I have never been unemployed and neither has anyone in my family. But unemployment affects society as a whole: low wages, a sense of insecurity and humiliation for millions of people who work for pennies. How I got a job in a private publishing house with a salary of first 2, and then 2.5 thousand. month it felt like you were holding God by the legs. Basically the king of life. I honestly don’t want young people to experience high unemployment the hard way. Those were very bad times. And how do you remember it?
Poverty and hopelessness
I remember coming to Poland in 2001-2012 for holidays, to a house in the countryside. Every day someone came asking for a job. I remember a young couple with a two-year-old who came to ask if they could collect acorns to sell to a forest ranger. And that notebook on the counter in the GS.
It’s a horrible feeling, I know something about it because I’ve been out of work three times. Feelings of helplessness, sadness, fear, hopelessness, depression. Man is on the margins of society. Not only is there nothing to live on, the psyche sits down. The worst years of my life.
Halina, I worked as a disabled person because they wanted to because we were “free”, they got big subsidies and a salary of 800-900 zloty, they never used us when the Reds came back to power. Only PIS Solidarna Polska I Kukiz 15i And coalition partners. (…) And I had so much wealth when my husband worked for PLN 5.8 an hour and I was constantly shopping for a notebook, etc. I don’t want “this wealth” to return
‘God, how did we survive this?
You were lucky. My husband and I worked in the same company, which was widely privatized. We both lost our jobs. Three little kids at home and total desperation….. My God, how did we survive?
I am among those who said at the age of 45 that I was no longer good for anything. 10 years of unemployment without benefit, and no job offer during these 10 years. Not somewhere on the outskirts, but in the province. śląskie, the unemployment rate in the poviat is 27%.
Times with repeated non-stop questions from friends “do you have a job, how did you find it”.
Treated like waste
I remember… my cousin from Podlasie, after he destroyed the sugar factory in Łapy, lost everything, we brought lunches to a lady with a disabled child, who was left all alone. The son found a job illegally, he and the people in the garbage trucks were treated like garbage.
And this contemptuous text: there are ten who take your place
“Please don’t write a resignation, I’ll compensate with leave. If I take L4, I have no reason to go back there”
“It Was Bad”
It sucked. I worked for 5 an hour. I remember when I wanted to work in the city gardens, they didn’t hire me because I was too young (22). Terrible times searching and sending 70 resumes with no response.
I have been working in companies since the 90’s (earlier and a bit simultaneously as a university employee). There was work in IT, as well as earnings. But in the factory where I was, 600 people were laid off. For 28 years I watched without commitment as people and their families were shot with tears. And fear…
And how many had commission work! Me for example. I sold the goods, great!, I got paid. I didn’t sell? Thank God my mother had enough pension so that I could sleep peacefully. Oh, I didn’t register as unemployed, after all I had a job!
Under Tusk, I lost my job for a year. I don’t wish anyone. The loan had to be repaid and the unemployment benefit was only for a few months and amounted to PLN 300 up to a maximum of PLN 800.
And the fate of people who lost their jobs shortly before retirement. No job opportunities and a penny bridging pension. When they were able to retire on a regular basis, having worked even 40 years, he suddenly “gave them” an increase in retirement age and subsequent years of vegetation.
I remember flying past agencies that employed seafarers from Gdynia to Warsaw and Szczecin. The rates charged by the agents are outrageous, you had to support your family with something. Sometimes after waiting three months for a contract and spending savings…
In the intermediate
In 2010 I became unemployed, never again such experiences, you went to unemployment at 5:30 to stand in line and by noon it became 5 minutes of conversation, no vacancies, only two training sessions, one computer, which I had to accept even though I had 3 certificates.
2013-2014 Lodz, to register for the pup you had to leave yours before 7am and even if you got a number between 7.15-7.45 it was still it was only around 3pm it was lucky when you got in
For two years I went to a real estate agent who worked illegally, because I could not afford to work as an architect after graduating (…) As an architect, I worked without a contract for PLN 1,500, but the employer reduced our remuneration for every sick day at 80 PLN, usually I got about 1200 PLN, of which I had to pay 900 PLN for renting a room with bills. I couldn’t afford to work as an architect after graduating
I was out of work for fourteen months, during which only six months I received the full 500 zloty. This GOODNESS drove me crazy. About 2-3 million Poles lived like me.
Emigration
I remember. To become independent, I went to England. Everyone left. To Germany, to England, especially those from smaller towns. No prospects, no development. Collapsing industry, high house prices and rubbish employment contracts. With higher education free. It was PO-PSL.
I remember that you had to go abroad to support your parents who lost their jobs. I remember my friend’s parents were also fired and begged for something to eat, then their apartment was taken away for debt. People between the ages of 40 and 50 fell into poverty
I was LUCKY that I got a job right after graduation – for a salary that was enough for a monthly subscription. Most of my educated friends then left for UK, NL, DE and SE. Deflate Poland!
Broken lives
I also had a job and supported myself. But the fear of losing her, the humiliation, the eternal availability at a beck and call, are in me to this day. Never again. Never.
I had a job. As a specialist even well paid. With overtime, subsistence allowances, etc., I had an income in 2003 that has still not been matched. But I had to accept full availability, multi-month delegations, travel and work on Sundays and holidays, knowing that if I left I wouldn’t find another job at all. What semi-luxury slavery. The family felt it very much and we haven’t really gotten over it to this day.
Do we want to go back to that?
And sometimes I’m tempted by the prospect of a bucket of ice water on those young, fat, carefree faces screaming “j*c PIS” today. They have no idea what threatens Tusk’s re-release. Within two to four years out of work, in humiliation and poverty, they would grow up very quickly and find life priorities
And this description of humiliation appealed to me the most because of what it doesn’t say:
I don’t want to remember. I just don’t want it
These are just some of the brief memories from Tusk’s time. We had millions of such stories in Poland. To this day, some of them have not ended: broken biographies, Poles in exile, the “extinguishing” of Polish factories … Do we want to go back to that?
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Source: wPolityce