#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #POLAND #ANARCHISM #News #Journal #Update - (en) #Poland, #ozzip: Budget Act for 2022. For society or for the interests of the rulers? [machine translation]

 The Sejm is currently working on the draft budget act for 2022. They fall on a

very difficult period. The inflation rate just reached 6.8% y / y. This increase
is having a heavy impact on our home budgets. ---- According to the latest CBOS
research, three-fourths of the population, due to the increase in the prices of
basic goods and services, limit their daily expenses or look for cheaper
products, and over 40% of people have already used their savings for current
expenses[1]. The situation is worsened by rising energy prices, and thus higher
and higher bills for electricity, heating and hot water. In the fall and winter
season, they will constitute a serious burden for many households, and according
to the cited studies, already 63 percent. of respondents declare that they have
reduced their consumption of electricity, water and gas. The fact that we will
not avoid further increases in energy prices due to what is happening on the
Polish Power Exchange, argues Rafal Gawin, President of the Energy Regulatory
Office: "These will certainly be higher than a year ago and greater than the
inflation rate"[2].

In addition, the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating: hospitals
are overcrowded again, and the government is not providing any support to
healthcare professionals, let alone taking any action to limit the spread of the
coronavirus. In these difficult conditions, the problems that have plagued
employees and employees of the budgetary sector for years - the growing scope of
duties and low, for years unqualified salaries - are particularly acute. No
wonder that subsequent sectors - health care workers, the judiciary, and public
administration - have started or are starting to protest. All indications are
that soon more frustrated professional groups from the public sector will join them.

However, when drafting the budget law, the authorities have different priorities
than improving the living conditions of the working class, i.e. the majority of
the population. National defense spending will record record increases, and the
group that has been guaranteed special increases will be the uniformed services.
 From January 1, 2022, police officers, professional soldiers and border guards
can count on a gross pay rise of PLN 677 with an annual bonus (about PLN 500 per
hand)[3]. Therefore, we ask, who is this law for? For the society or for the
realization of the plans and interests of the rulers?

Government versus society's needs

Instead of taking the growing social problems seriously - the crisis in the
health care system, poverty in society, energy poverty, the housing crisis,
employee demands for wage indexation, as well as the challenges related to the
necessity of energy transformation, the state got caught up in a horrendous,
unnecessary and dangerous conflict on the eastern border . Instead of seeking to
de-escalate it, the nationalist government falls into patriotic complacency, and
it is this conflict that will consume a large part of public funds in the future.

The 4.4% increase in the salary fund for employees of the state budget sector
announced in the draft budget act for 2022 does not compensate for the increase
in prices of products, services and energy, leading to further real
impoverishment of employees and employees of public finance units. Why, then, in
the justification to the draft budget act, it is only on the fourth place, and is
preceded by, inter alia, "an increase in the additional annual salary, additional
salary for soldiers and the annual award of officers" and "an increase in the
national defense salary fund in connection with the increase in employment of
soldiers professional and officers "[4]?

Moreover, the project of modernization of uniformed services for the years
2022-2025, for which over PLN 10 billion has been allocated, also means an
increase in expenditure on new equipment, personal equipment of officers, and
construction investments[5]. The companies of the State Treasury will also
contribute to this, as recently announced by the Minister of State Assets, Jacek
Sasin, praising the state-owned companies for joining the campaign to help
soldiers and services stationed on the border with Belarus[6].

Perhaps the most shocking expenditure planned by the authorities in the near
future is the construction of a wall on the Polish-Belarusian border. This
bizarre investment will cost us PLN 1.6 billion, and it will be built with the
exclusion of public procurement law, construction law, environmental protection,
spatial planning and development or water law[7]. No wonder that experts call
this example the so-called disaster capitalism. Disasters and crises - natural,
war, humanitarian - are a tragedy for ordinary people. Big business derives huge
profits from them, bypassing the generally applicable regulations, beyond social
control. One should not be under the illusion that this macabre investment,
cutting across one of the most valuable natural areas in Europe (Bialowieza
Forest), will increase security. On the contrary, the example of the wall erected
on the border between the United States and Mexico shows that such infrastructure
does not deter smugglers. The profits of the people benefiting from human
trafficking will increase and crime will increase. The greater the difficulty in
legally crossing the border for migrants, the higher the threat to their lives,
but also the higher the earnings of criminal groups.

Protests in the budgetary sector

Dissatisfaction with public sector workers has been growing markedly for a long
time. More groups have started to protest in the last few months alone. Since
September, there has been a protest of female workers and health care workers who
demand that their financial situation and working conditions be improved. The
strike action is carried out by ZUS employees, who have long criticized low
wages, increased workload and mobbing[8]. Throughout the autumn, there is also a
protest of female and judicial workers who demand raises and equal treatment[9].

Let us emphasize - the work of these people is essential for the smooth
functioning of the entire society. We don't even need to write about the
importance of the work of the overloaded nurses beyond the imagination. However,
let us pay attention to the work of hundreds of thousands of officials working in
the Social Insurance Institution, courts and other institutions, performing work
that is invisible to us on a daily basis - without it, we would also be
paralyzed. Are the authorities reacting to the protests? Do they try to meet the
demands of employees? Are they making it clear to all of us that a
well-functioning society in which well-paid employees perform tasks of general
interest is their priority?

On the contrary, the government not only does not show good will in mediation
with individual groups, but it even escalates conflicts and shows extreme
arrogance. While workers and healthcare professionals - the workgroup most
severely hit by the burdens and dangers of the pandemic (last year, during the
peak of the fall wave, there was not a week in which at least one nurse died on
Covid-19) - are looking forward to decent raises and improving working
conditions. Meanwhile, the Minister of Health, Adam Niedzielski, awards himself a
raise of PLN 5,000[10]! The Ministry of Justice, on the other hand, is doing
everything possible to conflict with each other trade unions that are protesting
in the judiciary and bring about a settlement only with the most loyal to the
authorities.

This is not a hybrid war, but a hybrid murder

This ostentatious disregard for the legitimate demands of female and public
sector employees, while simultaneously ostentatiously increasing spending on
national defense, the army and law enforcement services, should worry us. The
militarization of the country, the increase in salaries and the powers of the
uniformed services do not bode well for the working class. All of these may soon
become tools to pacify workers' protests.

Instead of meeting the demands of employees and paying fairly for work necessary
for the functioning of society and investing in socially necessary infrastructure
- in hospitals, council housing, education or public transport - the authorities
prefer to blackmail us with a propaganda hybrid war. If we succumb to this
blackmail now, nothing will prevent her in the future from using force and tools
such as the state of emergency and the apparatus of violence not only against
several thousand vulnerable people on the border, but against the whole of society.

Prepared by: Pawel Nowozycki / Department Committee of OZZIP at the Museum of
Modern Art in Warsaw
Weronika Parfianowicz / Department Committee of OZZIP at the University of Warsaw

Footnotes:
1 / see
https://businessinsider.com.pl/twoje-pieniadze/budzet-domowy/inflacja-sie-rozpedza-polacy-raniczaja-zakupy-i-wydaja-oszczednosci/7xs8mx
2 / see.
https://businessinsider.com.pl/twoje-pieniadze/budzet-domowy/jakie-podwyzki-cen-pradu-i-gazu-prezes-ure-odpaczya/4npjh0h
3 / see.
https://portal-mundrawy.pl/index.php/component/k2/item/14628-strumien-pieniedzy-dla-sluzb-mswia-na-sprzet-etaty-i-podwyzki
4 / Draft budget act submitted to the Sejm of the Republic of Poland for 2022
available for download here:
https://www.gov.pl/web/finanse/projekt-przekazany-do-sejmu2
5 / see
https://portal-mundrawy.pl/index.php/component/k2/item/14628-strumien-pieniedzy-dla-sluzb-mswia-na-sprzet-etaty-i-podwyzki
6 / see.https://next.gazeta.pl/next/7 , 151003,27791867,
sasin-oglasza-dobry-state-spolki-wespra-zolnierzy-kupimy.html? fbclid =
IwAR2ixwSIL-spHuh7aRbQ23OVnCXVVjCb3
.
https://oko.press/zadnych-bezpiecznikow-plot-na-granicy-z-bialorusia-to-kapitalizm-katastroficzny-po-polsku/
8 / see https://next.gazeta.pl/next/7 , 151003,27804986,
strike-urzednikow-zus-trial-against-low-placom-mobbingowi.html
9 / see.
https://krytykapolityczna.pl/kraj/krawczyk-protest-pracownikow-sadow-to-skandal-ze-w-sadzie-lamany-jest-kodeks-pracy/
10 /
see.https://www.wp.pl/?s=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.money.pl%2Fgospodarka%2Fdla-medykow-pieniedzy-nie-ma-adam-niedzielski-dostal-za-to-suta-podwyzke
-6683366522452960a.html & src01 = 6a4c8 & src02 = isgf & fbclid =
IwAR3puUtuqztPwljoIIm0mCGygueomczKlKnKEPySm_hJu9ySBf-vgK_OD94

https://ozzip.pl/publicystyka/polityka/item/2835-ustawa-budzetowa-na-2022-rok-dla-spoleczenstwa-czy-dla-interesow-rzadzacych
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