WARSAW, July 23 — Meet Marek. He’s in his late 50s and has been driving a 40-ton semi-trailer truck between Eastern and Western Europe for the past 35 years.
For decades, the two-lane R2 was the only road between Warsaw and the German border. Today, Marek drives the 454-kilometer (280-mile), four-lane divided superhighway, the A2.
“Before 2004 [when Poland joined the European Union (EU)], my work was simpler and better,” says Marek. “I also earned more. Today, there isn’t any border any longer, but wages have fallen. Many drivers get paid by the kilometer. Now, your income often depends on how far you get. And the number and the seriousness of the accidents have gone up.” Some trucks are hurtling along at 140 km/h (88 mph). And “anyone who drives the A2 regularly sees serious accidents again and again,” says Marek. “Braking a 40-ton truck is no easy thing.”
Of course, the cost of training drivers for the new superhighway would have eaten into profits. And as for speeding — well, time is money.
One might think inventing a new machine or building a four-lane divided highway to replace a two-lane road would improve life. But not under capitalism. As Karl Marx commented, “The aim of the capitalistic application of machinery….is a means for producing surplus value.” Profit, plain and simple.
The purpose of the A2 is to intensify the exploitation of low-paid Polish workers. In April, 2013 the average net monthly wage in Poland was $945.
The European Commission’s March 2011 document “Frontier Economics” says, “Good transport connectivity is regarded as key to supporting economic activity and inward investment in the Lodz and Wielkopolska Regions….[which] have attracted significant inward investment from multi-national organizations in the food, distribution, electrical manufacturing and car manufacturing sectors” — Nestle, Unicom, Wrigley, Volkswagen and Skoda.
The A2 itself is a capitalist money-maker. Built as a public-private partnership meant the public sector (the EU and Polish government) took the risk, while private corporations rake in the profits.
The construction companies charged 2.5 billion euros ($3.45 billion) for the final section of the A2, largely coming from the European Investment Bank. The rest came from bank consortiums and private investors, who got a 40-year concession to operate the toll road.
Marek isn’t the only worker whose quality of life has plunged. Today, there’s a fast food restaurant (belonging to a U.S. chain) at practically every A2 rest stop. A retired worker shakes his head: “On the R2, I always stopped at one restaurant called the Las Vegas….There was always something fresh to eat. You don’t get that here.”
At the Las Vegas, Magda, 26, has worked a 12-hour shift at the old R2 for the past two years. “My shift begins at 7:20 a.m…. We clean the rest stop, check the stocks and of course serve the customers. However,…when the A2 opened, the number of customers fell practically overnight.” The boss has laid off one-third of the workers.
On June 4, the A2 was officially named Freedom Highway by Polish president Broneslaw Pomerowski and German president Joachim Gauck. But the freedom is only for the capitalists.
So long as the profit system exists, scientific and technological progress will be used to increase the exploitation of the working class. The only realistic answer is a workers’ revolution to establish communism, when progress will serve to lighten the day’s toil.