Can cooperatives be a response to the challenges of a just transition in Poland?
Poland has less and less time to answer the question of how to carry out the energy transition in a fair way. That is why the experts of CoopTech Hub – the first cooperative technology center in Poland – in the report „Cooperative transformation. Operationalization of a just transition for coal regions in Poland” decided to show step by step the model of cooperative transformation. It is to be based on a guarantee of employment, development cooperatives, participation, green and digital innovations.
„The current model based on production monocultures and fossil fuels has been exhausted. We indicate a way of change that will create a stable labor market and enable the development of the local economy through investments in green and digital solutions. This requires planning in the long term – say Jan J. Zygmuntowski, Program Director of CoopTech Hub and Joanna Erbel, Leader of the CoopTech Hub Local Government Club.
All previous attempts to transform mining regions have encountered a barrier at the stage of operationalization. CoopTech Hub experts propose innovative economic policy tools – development cooperatives, employment guarantee and employee participation. According to their calculations, the cooperative transformation model is also profitable – the cost of 1/3 of the resources of the Just Transition Fund itself is to solve the problem of structural unemployment in all coal regions in Poland.
The proposal for a cooperative transformation was consulted for half a year with key organizations of social dialogue: employers of the coal industry, mining trade unions, non-governmental organizations, green social movements and with local government officials themselves, who most need substantive advice on the eve of a just transition.
On the CoopTech Hub Linkedin profile, a comment of one of the representatives of the social side, made during a meeting of experts and stakeholders around the report, was quoted: „Such a transformation model can be a good start for changes on a wider scale in the economy and the dissemination of ideas such as cooperatives or employment guarantees. It is therefore a socially and climate-friendly alternative to the increasingly unstable and isolated labour market model, which is particularly important and striking to young people.”
„There is a danger that money, even big money for a just transition, will not solve the problem. Social protection, severance pay or training are undoubtedly needed – but they will not create jobs. And when there are no jobs, then in ten or twenty years there will be no life in the mining regions. Nor can we base a development strategy solely on the hope of attracting investors from outside the region – says Dr. Mateusz Piotrowski, President of the Patient Europe Association, which was the originator of the report.
Source: mat. press,linkedin.com/company/cooptechhub
Projekt otrzymał dofinansowanie z Norwegii poprzez Fundusze Norweskie 2014-2021, w ramach programu „Dialog społeczny – godna praca”.
