Representatives of Solidarity are sounding the alarm that PG Silesia is laying off employees. They emphasize that this violates the agreement the company signed with trade unions at the end of December last year, following an eight-day underground protest by miners from PG Silesia. “This agreement is not being respected at all. The only thing that was implemented from it was the fact that on the day it was signed, the protest ended and people came back to the surface,” said Grzegorz Babij, head of the company-level Solidarity, on TV Republika.
At the end of December, miners from PG “Silesia” staged a protest. The mine workers spent eight days underground during the Christmas period. The protesters were defending their jobs in the face of announced layoffs. On December 29, an agreement was signed with the government and the owner of the facility.
In the document, the miners’ employer stated that it was maintaining its offer to lease an organized part of the enterprise and to take over all employees of the company under Article 231 of the Labor Code. It also declared that it would not issue termination notices, with the reservation that this would apply unless the lease agreement failed to materialize.
Yesterday, however, the head of the company-level Solidarity, Grzegorz Babij, announced that some unions had signed a different agreement with the company. This one also includes a point on taking over employees, but the word “all” has disappeared from it. The employer has begun issuing termination notices to workers.
As a result, Solidarity has declared a strike alert at the plant.
Babij: the agreement can be thrown in the trash
Babij spoke more about the situation on TV Republika.
“The agreement that was signed on December 29, 2025, can be thrown in the trash. The long negotiations at that time in Katowice, during the tripartite commission, concerned above all three key points: in the event of a lease by Bumech S.A., which owns Silesia, all employees are to be transferred under Article 23. And that was the key word: all. The then side, that is the court-appointed administrator, because we are in restructuring proceedings, legally at this moment the proceedings have been discontinued by a court decision, but we are in the 14-day period for the judgment to become final, the administrator signed this agreement. It was also signed by a representative of Bumech S.A., the company that may become the lessee. And that magic word was finally included, after long negotiations,” he said.
“Today it turns out that it is not all employees after all. It emerged that the day before yesterday the issuing of termination notices to workers began. From my unofficial information, because I am currently cut off from all information at the mine, it appears that what happened yesterday and the day before concerns about 40 people,”he reported.
Babij went on to admit that another point of the agreement had been broken.
“The administrator/employer stated that they would not apply any layoffs unless the lease agreement failed to materialize. And what happens? The first thing they did was issue termination notices. And now, yesterday, they signed the lease agreement. An incredible scandal. What’s more, they signed a commitment stating that those who protested for eight days underground would face no legal consequences. At this moment, a round-up is underway, the leader of this underground protest received a termination notice. The leaders who were visible and spoke a lot also received these notices,” he said.
“This agreement is not being respected at all. The only thing that was implemented from it was the fact that on the day it was signed, the protest ended and people came back to the surface,” he emphasized.
Unofficially: several dozen people have already been laid off
As the union leader noted, there is still the issue of the government, namely the fourth point of the December agreement.
Specifically, the government side committed to starting work on an amendment to the mining law that would cover all hard coal miners in Poland, particularly in social matters. We are waiting for decisions, he clarified.
“The only thing I can already say is that during the protest, there were two ministers from the Presidential Chancellery: Mateusz Kotecki and Karol Rabenda. On the president’s side, they declared that the amendment would be submitted. I had the honor of actually receiving this document from the president in Jaworzno on January 10, for which I thank him very much. This also fulfills a given word. It is probably now in the speaker’s freezer. So there is a ready-made document, it needs to be taken out and put on the agenda. I strongly ask every MP to try in some way to help these people,” he appealed.
Babij also spoke about the drama of one married couple who are “just a moment away from retirement,”
“Here at Silesia today, it is coming to the point where married couples are being laid off. Yesterday there was a couple here: a woman with three years left until retirement, and her husband with one year. They were brutally dismissed, thrown out onto the street. This is unbelievable,” he said.
„The man who is managing things here today is the majority owner of Bumech and signs as the administrator’s proxy. The guy who led to such a catastrophe is today the proxy of someone who was supposed to help. This defies human comprehension. Our colleagues will likely arrive here soon and we will have to calm emotions. No one expected that we would be deceived like this. The people who signed this agreement are, to me, fraudsters. They deceived the employees, the miners of PG Silesia, who were worried about the future of their families and the situation around the mine,” he pointed out.