The traditional model of Western democracies includes a characteristic time line of the
development of a relationship between trade unions and political parties (Mair 1997).
Through a long-term process of democratization and politicization, participating trade unions
played a central role in the formation of cleavages across Western post-industrial
democracies (Lipset & Rokkan 1967; Lijphart 1981). It is commonly acknowledged that
similar development could not have occurred in the post-communist countries, due to lack of
resources for the production of a stable party system or high levels of electoral volatility in
the first years of transposition. The exception to that could have been Poland, which had a
strong social organization prior to the collapse of communism: its anti-communist movement
was based in the Solidarity, a major trade union. And yet, trade unions in Poland have not
built the stable and long-term relations with political parties as are observed in Western
democracies. By analyzing the historical and symbolic background of the transformation to a
democratic civil society and free market economy, political preferences of working class,
trade union membership rates, and public opinion polls, we argue that, in case of Poland, the
initial links between political parties and trade unions weakened over time. Polish trade
unions never had a chance to become a long-term intermediary between society and political
parties, making the Polish case study a double exception from the traditional models.
