Social activity of railway workers’ associations in Poland in interwar period

The aim of the article is to present the activities of railwaymen’s associations and social activity in the period of the Second Polish Republic. Railwaymen belonged to numerous and very diverse social organizations, engaged in charity, cooperative, and sports work as well as local and national initiatives. Railway workers’ associations were one of the forms of supporting the Polish state in solving important social and living problems. Their activity is an excellent example of social commitment – the implementation of educational and cultural, social and living as well as health and recreational goals, not only of the railway community but also other social associations of the interwar period. The article presents the social activity of railwaymen undertaken within the associations, with an indication of their theoretical and legal foundations and practical ways of achieving their goals. The article is based on printed sources, including statutes and reports, normative documents, articles from magazines published in the interwar years referring to the issue under study, and contemporary studies. The presented examples of associations indicate that they played an important role in the socio-political, economic, educational and cultural life of the interwar period. The activities of railwaymen undertaken within the associations initiated many useful actions, which became a creative factor that had a positive impact on the life of this professional group.

On the 25th of September, 2015 the Polish Parliament adopted the act amending the 1989 Act on Associations. Though there had been eight subsequent amendments, the 2015 act was the first aiming to substantially adapt the Act on Associations – the first legal effect of the political consensus achieved within the Round Table negotiations of the then Communist government and the “democratic opposition” – to new social and economic conditions of Poland. 26 years of functioning of the Act have been the time of passage from “real socialism” to “democratic state of law” having to base, according to the 1997 Constitution, on “social market economy”, and from a practical isolation of Poland within its borders to its opening to the world, in particular within the framework of European institutions. The article sketches, also on the basis of the author’s personal experience due to his participation in drafting and legislative works, the course of the revision works initiated in 2009, in particular of parliamentary works on the 2014 President’s draft law, as well as their limited results achieved in the 2015 act. Analyses of causes of such limitation are presented on the plane of the most important items of the pre- -parliamentary and parliamentary debates, i.e. right of legal persons to associate on equal terms with physical persons (not included in the President’s proposal), right of foreigners to associate on equal terms with citizens (and inhabitants) of Poland (its application had been proposed by the President, but not included in the act), and legal effect of the, generally agreed, elevation of the status of “ordinary association” on functioning of the present ordinary associations that would not wish to become new ordinary associations; the latter question relates to the fundamental issue of the sense of the freedom of association.