Polish Nurse
Poland's Prime Minister Sets Up Conditions For Class Warfare To Pay Polish Nurses
Warsaw, Poland 24 June, 2007 Poland's Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, citing the support for striking Polish nurses by a television station owner, will pit the rich against the poor to raise money to give the nurses pay raises.
Doctors, generally earning 350 euro a month, and nurses, earning less than many cleaning ladies, have been engaged in what they call a "Protest of white slaves."
Their demands for increased pay have been soundly rejected by the Polish Government. According to the Government, despite a booming economy, there is no money in the budget to meet the demands of the doctors and nurses.
"All of the ministers are using old cars and flying with old planes and have no extra money at their disposal just to throw money around," he said. "If we raise their pay, other public industries will file wage demands."
The doctors and nurses strikes and protests had been fairly routine, subject to normal media coverage. They continued on with polls showing the public supported them. But when some nurses, after participating in a legal demonstration, camped out overnight in front of the Prime Minister's Chancellory, the Government escalated tensions by sending fully clad riot police against the defenseless nurses. See
Poland's Government Sends Riot Police Against Demonstrating Polish Nurses
The public was outraged by the use of force.
According the political analysts, the move against the nurses backed the Prime Minister into a corner. He had to take some action.
So he proposed a referendum on a tax on the rich to raise money for the pay raises.
In a press conference, he made the comment that if the head of the television station TVN supported the nurses, he should be willing to pay a tax to pay them.
According to Polish Business Roundtable chief economist Janusz Jankowiak, who in an interview on TVN24 said, "This is clearly an attempt to play different groups off against each other. We should not forget that the root of the problem with funding pay raises is the failure to reform state finances. That's the essence here; not that there is no money for pay raises."
Marta Petka, an economist at Raiffeisen Bank in Warsaw, said, "The government does not have money for pay increases if it wants to keep the budget limits, that's true, but the idea to raise taxes is rather a trick to lower public support for the nurses." See Polish Premier Proposes Referendum on Nursing Wages
In Poland and Russia, under communism, doctors and nurses were essentially forced into slavery and not paid enough according to their knowledge and workload. Imposition of a tax can possibly reduce support for their plight. And if the tax is not approved, they will continue as second class citizens, or as they see it, white slaves.
The Prime Minister has set up the conditions for a three way split among the classes. The poor, the doctors and nurses, and those paying the extra tax.
He has shifted the debate away from why public finances are not being reformed and why the doctors and nurses can't be paid, to a debate between the classes over money that is likely to be acrimonious. So called white slavery in Poland may still have a future if the classes start battling over who is going to pay.
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