New Threats

Everybody works, or else

In the Communist bloc, the right to work has long been indivisible from the obligation to do so. The Soviet Union, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria even have laws on the books making it a crime to remain without a job. Draft versions of similar laws against "social parasitism" have been circulating in Poland's Sejm, or parliament, for more than a decade, but none has ever made it out of committee. The Roman Catholic Church has opposed the idea for fear it would be abused for political, anti-religious or personal purposes. The Academy of Sciences has argued that forcing goldbrickers into factory jobs would harm the economy.

Last week the revived draft law was rammed through the 460-seat Sejm. This time, in addition to targeting the usual loafers, drunks and black-market speculators, the law appeared to be aimed at Solidarity supporters who lose their jobs for engaging in strikes and antigovernment demonstrations.

The new law requires men between 18 and 45 who have been unemployed for more than 90 days to register with local authorities. If they refuse to accept long-term work or fail to report for questioning, they are called "shirkers" and placed on a special list. Then they can be forced to do 60 days of community work, like shoveling snow after blizzards. Failure to answer a summons can bring a year in jail. Those who do not show up for community work can be sentenced to two years behind bars.

The law is a particular threat to 40,000 former white-collar employees of the now outlawed Solidarity organization, such as printers, journalists and clerical staff, many of whom are still without jobs. It also threatens blue-collar workers like those at the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk, about 50 of whom were fired after an attempted strike last month. Many of these workers have also received "wolf tickets," or bad-conduct reports, making it hard for them to get new jobs.

That is precisely General Wojciech Jaruzelski's dilemma. The new threats may do little more than further diminish morale and productivity, while failing to curb political dissent. But if Jaruzelski does not crack down, he may face difficult challenges from increasingly impatient hard-liners within his own regime. One such warning came last week at a Central Committee meeting when a letter from former Politburo Member Tadeusz Grabski was circulated accusing the government of allowing Poland to slide into anarchy. Any new power struggle among Poland's Communists would not only jeopardize Jaruzelski's hold on power but make even worse the economic situation that government leaders themselves last week described as "a breakdown on an unprecedented scale."

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