Critical labour studies and labour movements in the east of Europe: The Polish experiences

Abstract

Poland has a long tradition of cooperation between intellectuals and the labour movement, as well as organic intellectuals within the labour movement, which manifested itself during the workers’ and citizens’ struggles against authoritarian socialism. However, this legacy has weakened in the 1990s during the period of neoliberal economic restructuring, supported by part of the former anti-communist opposition. In this article, I document some traces of the revival of this collaboration in the 2010s and 2020s, based on available literature, documents and my own experiences from several projects and initiatives in which I was involved. In the context of debates on critical labour studies and public sociology, this article focuses on reconstructing the opportunities and challenges of collaboration between sociologists and labour movements in a context where trade unions are relatively weak and the institutional foundations for collaboration are lacking.