Nowa Krytyka

This paper reports the results of a pilot survey conducted among the shipyard workers from Gdansk and Gdynia. The objective of the study was to diagnose the social mobility of those workers. We focused on the mechanisms behind the position change for both the workers and their adult children. Intragenerational mobility was captured by an examination of two moments of shipbuilders professional biographies. The first involved the late 70’s and early 80’s, the second refered to the current class position. At the same time, the contemporary class position of the adult children of the shipyard workers was studied, which allowed us to examine intergenerational mobility as well. Three research questions were answered using the empirical evidence: − Has the class position of shipyard workers changed? In other words; whether they have gone from working class to another great social class (eg. petty bourgeoisie, capitalist class, service class, etc.).− Has the specific intraclass position of workers changed?− Does the class position of children differ from the position of the parents? The terminology used above clearly indicates our interest in class positions. Class can be called a collection of people involved identical positions in the social division of labor and ownership or how Jacek Tittenbrun puts it: “groups of people which differ from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of economic activity (i.e. production, exchange, transport, finance and services)” (Tittenbrun 2011, 188–189).As noted above, in the first part of the study we describe shipbuilders’ class position in the early 80s and also their current position. Class position of the workers was finally compared to the current class position of their offspring. In this paper the preliminary results are presented. Particular attention is devoted to the changes in the stability of employment. We discuss how the working condition of the shipyard workers changed aswell as we compare the stability of employment of parents and children.