Poland: social trialogue and personnel management in a context of change

During the last decade, the Polish HR/management system has been in a continuous process of change and reorganisation⁴⁹, and has been strongly influenced by the French model of administration. Major objectives of this change process include the

development of a professional, apolitical civil service, the promotion of a professional integrity and the modernisation of the management of personnel through a more coherent and structured approach, as well as a modern Civil Service Act. The Polish public

administration, which is a mixed system, builds upon the classical Weberian principles of

48 Dell’Aringa Carlo, della Rocca Giuseppe, Keller Berndt (Ed.), see above, p. 60ff. Soren Kay Andersen, see above, p. 11ff.

49 Bouckaert Geert, Nemec Juraj (Edit.), Public Management Reforms in Central and Eastern Europe, NISPACEE 2008.

bureaucracy⁵⁰, while some elements of NPM are increasingly incorporated in the current system. However, this transition has never gone so far as to jeopardise the orientation towards rules and procedures, which remains a dominant trait.

Currently, reform efforts in the field of personnel policy focus on an improvement of managerial competencies and on efforts to introduce common management standards in the whole public administration. Personnel policy of statutory civil servants illustrates characteristics, which are typical both for career systems, such as the trend towards a rather uniform personnel policy and for the position system. However, there are also differences in the field of salaries in the different institutions, in the same way that a diversified approach has been adopted between the nominated civil servants and the remaining staff in the administration.

In the field of management of personnel, the central government unit – the Chancellery of the Prime Minister – plays a key role. This body is in charge of the management

processes in the civil service such as recruitment and training. Other competencies include the co-organisation of competitions for high level posts and the preparation, proposal and amendments of legislative acts in the field of civil service, as well as the supervision of the National Public Administration School.

Which of the following actors is involved in the decision making of the different fields of HRM, and to what extent?

(4 = not at all involved; 3 = exclusively involved; 2 = involved to a certain extent with another actor).

Central

50 Classical Weberian principles are: clear systems of supervision and subordination, rule-based approach, clear vertical line of command, specification of jobs etc.

There is a trend to decentralise the responsibility to carry out personnel policy to director- generals or to those offices that are directly subordinated to the relevant Minister.

Social trialogue is rather centralised at the level of the central public administration;

consultation takes place at the level of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister.

The main organ, in which consultation regarding the public administration (government and self/local government) is taking place, is the sub-group on self-government of administration employees and civil service, which functions under the Tripartite

Commission for Social and Economic Affairs. Its main goal is to work out and to agree on topics such as the remuneration system, performance appraisals, job evaluations in particular, as well as the rules concerning labour law and the functioning costs. The sub-group is composed of 14 members: 4 representatives of the government; 2 representatives of the self-government administrations; 10 members of the trade union organisations; and 1 member of one of four representative employers’ organisations in Poland (Business Centre Club – Employers’ Union.

The involvement and role of the different actors on the employer side in the collective bargaining process

Ministry of Labour and

Social Policy This Ministry plays a leading role in supporting, coordinating and promoting the social trialogue in general. It provides the service to the Tripartite Commission for Social and Economic Affairs, which is the most important organ in the field of social trialogue in Poland.

Chancellery of the Prime

Minister The sub-group on self-government administration employees and civil service, which functions under the Tripartite

Commission, is chaired by the Head of the Civil Service in the Chancellery of the Prime Minister – the representative of the government appointed by the Chair of the Tripartite Commission. The sub-group deals inter alia with specific civil service issues. It is composed of the employers’ and

employees representatives, as well as the representatives of the government and self-government.

The sub-group is chaired by the representative of the Government appointed by the Chair of the Tripartite Commission, the head of the Civil Service in the Chancellery of the Prime Minister.

3 Conclusions: differences and similarities in the field of social dialogue at the level of the central public administration

In the European Union, the national public administrations are on the one hand embedded in different legal, cultural and administrative contexts, and on the other hand they have to cope with different economic and political reform pressures; in the European Member States this has led to different reform agendas – although common challenges and trends can be observed.

These reform processes, the dynamics of which vary, but whose direction is similar (privatisation, differentiation, decentralisation, individualisation), do have an impact on the significance, structure and output of the social dialogue/collective bargaining at the national level across the EU 27.