Szczecin, 28/09/2006
To be checked against delivery
President, friends, it is a great honour for me to come to the city of Szczecin, one of the birthplaces of the Solidarnosc and therefore of free, independent trade unionism. 26 years after the momentous events of 1980, I pay tribute today to the courageous, pioneer trade unionists of Szczecin to whom democracy owes so much. I am not of course forgetting what happened in Gdansk and other centres but no-one should forget either the contribution made by workers of this city.
Since then, events have moved at a rapid and, no doubt to many, at a bewildering pace. Communism has ceased to dominate, Poland has joined the EU, emigration has emerged as a mixed blessing both for Poland and for the receiving countries - a mixed blessing in Poland because it eases unemployment problems in Poland and foreign remittances from abroad are substantial. But there is a brain drain of a significant proportion of the talented and skilled. At the same time the receiving countries - some more than others - are nervous about too many immigrant workers arriving and about the risks of exploitation of Poles and other workers from the member states which joined the EU in 2004.
When I was General Secretary of the British TUC, we decided not to seek transitional measures to restrict immigration. In the back of our minds was that we had not been able to do much for Poland in 1939 or 1945 but we could do something now. At the front of our minds was that it is better to have Polish workers working legally, with full rights against exploitation than being forced to work in the black economy with all the vulnerability involved. There are abuses in Britain today but generally the story is a happy one.
Within the ETUC, our approach is not to support transitional measures but to advocate free movement and proper protections with first class status for migrant workers from within the EU. Solidarnosc has been one of our strongest supporters and we look forward to maintaining that mutual support.
Mutual support has also characterised our work against the original Bolkestein directive. Jozef Niemiec has done a great job on this keeping at the forefront of our work, the twin goals of fair competition for companies and protection for workers. Janusz Sniadek was a great help in this successful campaign and after our huge efforts we can now look forward to a much better fairer services directive than the one envisaged by Mr Bolkestein.
So thank you for your support and my best wishes to Solidarnosc and all Polish workers for the future.