Piotr Swacha

The purpose of the article is to point out the outlook of Local Censorship Office in Poznań to articles about political changes in Poland in 1956, which were published in Gazeta Poznańska. The previous research on the attitude of the press and censorship during the “Polish October” focused primarily on newspapers which were considered revisionist. Gazeta Poznańska was edited by Regional Committee of the Polish United Workers` Party and presented an official conservative point of view. The article was based on the documents from State Archive in Poznań. The basis of arrangements presented in the article were the result of the analysis of source documents created by Local Censorship Office in Poznań. They made it possible to create a category of texts which were consistently excluded from publication. This group included articles on the increase in wages and focused on the movements of Soviet troops in Poland. Censorship also blocked opinions that evaluated the earlier period of the Communist Party governments too critically and suggested dissatisfaction with the ongoing changes. The activity of censorship in Gazeta Poznańska in the year 1956 also indicates what type and level f criticism of the Communist Party at that time was considered to be admissible. The outlook of Local Censorship Office in Poznań to Gazeta Poznańska in the period of 1956 changes in Poland showed what type and level of criticism was acceptable in the Polish United Workers’ Party’s press.

The article is written about the collective agreements from the perspective of the International Labour Organization which — in the two conventions mentioned above — obligates its Member States to promote the idea of collective bargaining between social partners and to support efforts of such social partners aimed at conclusion of collective  agreements. Author presents the case law of the European Committee of Social Rights — a supervisory body within the Council of Europe — that obligates the authorities of the Member States of this international organisation to actively encourage the national social partner organisations to negotiate collective agreements. He concludes that experiences of the international organisations: International Labour Organization, Council of Europe and the European Union prove that the social dialogue and the resulting supranational legal regulations which were originally an alternative method for enactment of the European law within the European Union can and should be used by the  authorities of the Member States and social partners’ organisations in the EU Member States. Use by the government and the social partners’ organisations of the methods of good management of collective labour relations within the European Social Model presented in this study is a valuable supplementation of the presented legal guarantees enabling achievement of the overriding objective of the European Union mentioned in art. 2(1) of the Lisbon Treaty.