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Populist Economic Policy Hits Limit in Polish Teacher Strike

  • Ruling party refuses teacher pay demands after budget largesse
  • Lumping educators into ‘elite’ risks election-year backfire
Posters declaring the intention of a teachers' strike, at a school in Warsaw on April 8. 

Posters declaring the intention of a teachers' strike, at a school in Warsaw on April 8. 

Photographer: Janek Skarzynski/AFP via Getty Images 

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Poland’s government is hitting the limits of a populist economic program that has boosted voter support but left little extra to pay for the rising cost of running a country.

With two elections approaching this year, a strike by 600,000 teachers and education personnel now into its fifth day is underscoring the ruling Law & Justice party’s dilemma. Millions of people have been forced to take their children to work, or set up makeshift daycare centers, as opinion surveys published in past days show that about half of Poles back the biggest school protest in a quarter century.