Saksy (Poland)

Saksy 🇵🇱
Location: Poland
Definition: Seasonal economic migration
Keywords: Poland – CEE – Europe – EU – Migration – Money – Payment – Borders
Clusters: Survival
Author: Krzysztof Kruk
Affiliation: Alumnus, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, UK

By Krzysztof Kruk, Alumnus, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, UK

Since late 19th century, seasonal economic migration to Germany has been called saksy (the terms obieżysastwo and obieżysas were also used in the past). The etymology of saksy, obieżysastwo, and obieżysas is linked to Saxony, a popular destination of Polish peasants seeking temporary employment at the end of the 19th century (Grabowska and Engbersen, 2016:104; Morawska, 2001:60). Historical studies suggest that geographical proximity played a role, as many seasonal workers arriving in Saxony and other regions came from areas bordering Germany (Kępińska and Stark, 2013:6). Although the character of Polish economic migration evolved through subsequent decades, saksy remains a colloquial name for moving abroad in search of temporary occupation, nowadays regardless of the specific destination country.

The emergence of seasonal work as the dominant form of employment among Polish immigrants developed as a result of the interplay between bottom-up needs and top-down regulations. Demand for cheap agricultural labour and regional economic disparities motivated the movement of people, while the introduction of new crops increased the seasonality of demand for agricultural labour throughout the year (Kępińska and Stark, 2013:4). To demonstrate the size of this practice, the number of migrants from former Polish territories to Germany between 1870 and 1914 is estimated at 3.5 million (Marks-Bielska et al., 2015:35). Later on, German authorities implemented restrictions on the inflows of immigrants from the Russian and Austrian partitions, preventing Polish migrants from remaining in destination locations for extended periods of time.

With the Polish state recreated after World War I, temporary migration to Germany was legalised only through a bilateral convention signed in 1927 and restrictions were reinstated only three years later due to the ongoing economic crisis (Marks-Bielska et al., 2015:35). The outbreak of World War II preluded the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Polish forced labourers, used by the Nazis to fill the gaps in the domestic labour market, mostly in agriculture (Kępińska and Stark, 2013).

Saksy played a vital role in post-war communist Poland, even as controls imposed by the authoritarian regime raised formal barriers to free movement of labour. With the reforms of the passport law in 1970s, focusing on facilitating mobility within the communist bloc, the number of visits to East Germany reached 9.5 million in 1972 (Stola, 2015:112).

The collapse of communism and Poland’s accession to the EU entailed further waves of seasonal migration. In the 1990s, circular economic migration to Western Europe remained the predominant form of emigration from Poland, usually involving temporary employment in construction, agriculture, or household services (Grabowska and Engbersen, 2016:103; White et al., 2018). After 2004, the UK overtook Germany as the main receiving country (White 2016:10). That said, the changing context has transformed the character of saksy. Established migration patterns evolved upon the removal of obstacles to legalising permanent stay, which gained importance versus traditional temporary stay (White et al., 2018). The latest critical juncture in the history of Polish migration to Western Europe was the Brexit referendum, which reinstated barriers to the UK labour market.

Saksy are heavily affected by the operation of informal social networks, which organise and transform migration streams (Tilly, 2007). Migrants rely on interpersonal trust networks to hedge against risks stemming from lack of information and contacts in an unfamiliar environment. Tilly (2007) observes that the distribution of migration across destinations is not simply a function of associated economic opportunities; channels formed by interpersonal trust networks direct streams of migration into few select destinations. The significance of informal networks for this process is reflected in the informal jargon used to talk about practices surrounding economic migration. The term ściągnąć (literally “to pull down/off from”) denotes bringing over friends or family members to a foreign country. Settled immigrants and experienced temporary migrants often have the knowledge, as well as dojścia and znajomości (personal contacts and acquaintances) in a given location, which predisposes them for assisting incoming fellows. Dojścia and znajomości are key resources in the załatwianie of things (getting things done) for new immigrants, such as jobs and job interviews or accommodation. These practices form a cluster located within the murky borderland between instrumentality and sociability, operating as part of the overarching economy of favours.

Anecdotal evidence highlights the role played by informal networks in shaping Polish short-term economic migration. An illustrative example is provided by the provincial town of Siemiatycze in eastern Poland. Siemiatycze is the origin of an established migrant route to Brussels, with press reports estimating that around 3,000 migrants from the town (20% of its population) reside in the Belgian capital at any given time (Widzyk, 2017). The town delegated an official available to temporary migrants from Siemiatycze in Brussels, while a regional bus operator runs regular direct services to Brussels. The existence of a migratory route between Siemiatycze and Brussels is attributed to the development of an informal network. In a press interview, the mayor of the town noted that “nobody knows how it began (…) probably someone from Siemiatycze once went to Brussels to work, invited their family and friends – people brought other people over” (Widzyk, 2017).

Seasonal economic migration is by no means a distinctive Polish phenomenon and similar practices are widespread across developing economies with dysfunctional labour markets. Ukrainian zarobitchanstvo (заробітчанство) bears certain similarities to saksy and within the context of the Polish labour market the two remain in a symbiotic relationship as Poland’s steady economic growth observed after the democratic transition made it an attractive destination for Ukrainian temporary workers.

Persistent mobility has important implications for family life, such as the division of gender roles. This ties up with the common observation that the informal economy is highly gendered (Marx, 2018:9). Literature suggests that Polish seasonal migration has often been spearheaded by men from small and medium-sized towns and villages (Fiałkowska and Piechowska, 2016:10). When financial pressure begins to mount, it is more likely that men will be exempted from responsibilities of care, with women likely to face a greater ambivalence resulting from competing demands (Connidis and McMullin, 2002). Fieldwork studies reported that some female Polish migrants describe migration as an emancipating experience, allowing them to have some “rest,” even when their job in the destination country required substantial physical effort (Fiałkowska and Piechowska, 2016:10).

For many Poles, temporary migration for saksy remains an important strategy of making ends meet or finding attractive employment opportunities. The practice has profound implications for Poland’s social fabric, to the extent that “everyone in Poland is touched (…) by migration and lives in the transnational social space” (White et al., 2018:29). The reproduction of a characteristic lifestyle pattern associated with temporary migration affected individual biographies as well as the broader socio-economic structure, by transforming the domestic labour market and provoking the influx of financial but also social remittances, understood as imported norms, values, and attitudes (Grabowska and Engbersen, 2016). Although similar patterns of behaviour are pervasive across developing countries, saksy constitute a historical practice with its own specificities.

References

Connidis, Ingrid Arnet, and Julie Ann McMullin. 2002. “Sociological Ambivalence and Family Ties: A Critical Perspective”, Journal of Marriage and Family 64(3): 558–67

Fiałkowska, Kamila, and Maria Piechowska. 2016. “New Way, Old Pattern. Seasonal Migration from Poland to Germany”, Arbor 192(777): 1–13

Grabowska, Izabela, and Godfried Engbersen. 2016. “Social Remittances and the Impact of Temporary Migration on an EU Sending Country: The Case of Poland”, Central and Eastern European Migration Review 5(2): 99–117

Kępińska, Ewa, and Oded Stark. 2013. “The Evolution and Sustainability of Seasonal Migration from Poland to Germany: From the Dusk of the 19th Century to the Dawn of the 21st Century.” International Review of Economics and Finance 28(C):3–18

Marks-Bielska, Renata, Wiesława Lizińska, Karolina Babuchowska, and Milena Kaczmarczyk. 2015. Conditions Underlying Migrations from Poland to Germany and the United Kingdom, edited by Z. Chojnowski, Olsztyn: Wydawnictwo UWM