Polish Coal Miners’ Mythic Way of Life Is Virtually Played Out

Second-generation miner Jerzy Gacek and his family lived the traditional Silesian coal-mining life for many years. He went below ground every day; his wife stayed home with the children; work was hard, but the pay was good.

Now, as Poland struggles to become more competitive in a global economy, Gacek, 48, hopes that the restructuring of the nation’s coal industry won’t catch up with him before he gets a miner’s pension.

“I’m waiting impatiently until I’m 50 so I’ll be able to do what I’m really interested in,” said Gacek, who dreams of running a business with his son.

For many other miners, digging coal is the only life they know. Many hold far greater fears for the future as Poland strives to cut 105,000 coal-industry jobs by 2002--nearly half the positions that existed a year ago.

That means the government, dominated by the political arm of the Solidarity union that toppled communism here nearly a decade ago, must face down the workers who put it in power.

With other bloated state-run industries in need of restructuring, downsizing the debt-laden, money-hemorrhaging, overproducing coal industry would be a crucial step in building a healthy free-market economy.

Contrast With Romania

In a society unaccustomed to U.S.-style layoffs and job mobility, achieving these harsh cuts without provoking violence or a political backlash would also help Poland consolidate its nascent democracy. That contrasts with Romania, where protests by miners last month triggered a crisis that was defused only when the government agreed to increase wages and keep open two mines threatened with closure.

So far, miners in Poland have expressed their opposition peacefully and reforms here are making headway. That bodes well for the expanding community of Western democracies: Poland is scheduled to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization by late April and hopes to join the European Union.

Lost, however, will be an oft-romanticized way of life that has dominated the Silesian region for two centuries.

“The mining sector has debts everywhere--to banks, the social security agency, local government, environmental offices,” Deputy Economy Minister Janusz Szlazak said. “It is sick. That’s why a surgeon is necessary who will perform an operation on this sick body. The operation will be painful, but we hope that, after the operation, the organism will be healthy.”

Angriest are miners with 10 to 15 years of experience who fear losing their jobs before they notch up the 20 years required for early retirement.

“We came here to fight for our rights because we are being left without our jobs,” said Leszek Andrzejewski, 42, who was among about 800 miners at a Warsaw protest late last year. “Nobody else will give us jobs. We’ve lost our health working in the mines. We’re really in a hopeless situation.”

Polish coal mining is a hard, dangerous, well-paid occupation, complemented by a special work ethic, secure family life and a network of apartments, schools, hospitals, shops and even 104 holiday resorts built specifically for miners and their families.

Under communism, miners were among the best-paid, earning more than doctors or lawyers. The special shops run for them carried goods that otherwise were unavailable. The mines provided nearly everything their workers needed.

“The whole skiing industry in the Beskid Mountains [of southern Poland] was built by the mines,” said Jolanta Chrzanowska, a former mine manager who is deputy head of the mining employment agency in Katowice.

While most miners now care about their jobs primarily as their means of livelihood, some are still true believers in coal mining as a way of life.

“If I had a son, he would have to be a miner,” said Jozef Wojtynek, technical director of the Wieczorek mine here and a fourth-generation miner. “When I was young, I listened to my grandfather and father talk about this work--that this is good work, that the people are good and honest. If you have a miner from a family where this job was passed from grandfather to father to son, it’s almost impossible for him to leave mining and find another job.”

The benefits offered to downsized miners are among the best given any workers amid restructuring of state-owned industries. But when those benefits are compared with what they believe they deserve, most miners feel mistreated.

Andrzejewski, the Warsaw protester, said he is a second-generation miner on the job for 19 years--one shy of early retirement.

“We’re supposed to get some money, but it’s a one-time payment,” he said. “What can you do with those pennies you get?”

Miners often say that outsiders can’t really understand the strain of the work--or how tough it is to make the transition to a different job.

“If someone really wants to know what the miner’s job is all about, then let him get under a table and try peeling a huge bag of potatoes, and after doing it get out from under the table,” said Wladyslaw Mucha, deputy chairman of the Trade Union of Miners.

“A real miner who has worked hard for 25 years is a sick man. His back and joints are strained, damaged,” Mucha added. “This is not the nicest thing to say, but a miner after working 20 years underground is almost illiterate. He has learned to work very hard. It is coded in his mind that there is a wall of coal in front of him and he has to extract that coal. So what is he going to do now? Write computer programs? I don’t think so.”

The difficulty and danger of such work gave birth to a proud spirit of discipline and courage that many say is the miners’ most admirable trait.

Szlazak, the deputy economy minister and former mine manager, cited this as a source of miners’ power.

“If a miner was in danger, there were no cases of others wondering whether they should go and help him. They simply go and help,” Szlazak said. “That is one reason why the miners are so well organized, why they are a political force.”

But miners aren’t strong enough to hold back the tide.

“It’s a tragedy--they built a wonderful shaft, 1,000 meters deep, and now they’re going to cover it,” said Wlodzimierz Cupial, 54, a retiree from the Niwka-Modrzejow mine who is bitter about plans to close it this year. “Everything was prepared--the pipes, the underground walkways. This mine has enough coal for 50 years.”

Officials in charge of the reforms stress that Poland simply is producing more coal than anyone wants to buy at a price that pays for extracting it.

Heinz Hampel, deputy director of personnel at Wieczorek, motioned to a 20,000-ton mountain of unsold coal on the grounds of his mine and declared: “This is the mining crisis.”

Nationwide, about 14 million tons of “excess coal” are stored at mines and power facilities--more than 10% of annual production, said Andrzej Pucher, deputy chairman of the State Agency for Coal Industry Restructuring.

“The Communists built mining to a larger capacity than was needed,” Hampel said, noting that Poland’s military and industrial requirements have changed.

Mining losses for 1998 are estimated at $900 million, bringing cumulative mining debts to $4.8 billion, according to Ministry of Economy figures. About half of those debts will be forgiven as part of the $4.4-billion restructuring plan.

Workers leaving the mines before normal retirement can choose one of three programs, with certain eligibility restrictions: early retirement, a buyout or retraining. Relatively few choose retraining, but many who are too young for early retirement take the buyout of about $13,000.

Some use it to build a business or improve a family farm, said Henryk Nakonieczny, head of Solidarity’s national mining division. But there are “irresponsible ones” who see the lump sum as “a fortune” and envision “a car and a wife in a new fur coat.”

‘Wild Capitalism’ Feared

For many workers leaving the mines, “it is the first-ever job change,” said Andrzej Skowronski, head of the mining employment agency here. “They don’t know what it’s like to work for a private company. They are afraid of so-called ‘wild capitalism.’ ”

Others are making a successful transition, finding that new opportunities and pleasures come with the harshness of U.S.-style free-market efficiency.

But the Gacek family exudes optimism.

“I think I’m one of not many people who really appreciate the freedom we have now and know what to do with it,” said Jerzy Gacek, who as a local Solidarity activist in the early 1980s played a bit part in toppling communism.

He and his eldest son, Robert, a 22-year-old bass player in a rock band and a fourth-year student in political science at Silesian University in Katowice, plan to launch an artistic promotion firm. Neither can immediately devote full time to the venture, but both expressed confidence that it will succeed.

“People’s lives are going to improve,” Robert Gacek said. “They’ll have more money. . . . They’ll want to go out and enjoy themselves.”

Neither Jerzy Gacek nor his wife, Weronika, 43, is pushing their three sons toward the mines--nor do any of them show interest. Marcin Gacek, 20, said he might enjoy working for the state security agency. Tobiasz, 12, expressed interest in a job in the region’s growing food-processing industry.

“Young people now want to go on their own roads,” Weronika Gacek said. “For Robert, it’s music and politics. Marcin is very good at sports. Tobiasz is still very young. He has his own dreams.”

Ela Kasprzycka of The Times’ Warsaw Bureau contributed to this report.