There are only two European Union (EU) states where hard coal is still mined: Poland and the Czech Republic. One of the key interest groups in the hard coal mining industry are trade unions. They are particularly strong in this sector, almost entirely controlled by the state, in Poland—without their approval, it is in fact impossible to implement any significant reforms. The main goal of the article is to explain the influence of trade unions operating in the hard coal mining sector in Poland and the Czech Republic on the results of the reforms of this sector carried out in 2015–2019. The framework for empirical analysis is the theoretical output on interest groups and the power resources approach. Measuring the influence of an interest group on the decision-making process is one of the greatest challenges in research on interest groups. However, the empirical analysis allows us to conclude that the purposes of mining trade unions both in Poland and in the Czech Republic were consistent, that the shape of the reforms introduced in 2015–2019 was convergent with these goals, and that the activity of trade unions had a very big impact on these reforms. However, in the long run, hard coal mining in Europe is in decline and trade unions are only trying to stop what is inevitable.

只有两个欧盟 (EU) 国家仍在开采硬煤：波兰和捷克共和国。硬煤开采行业的主要利益集团之一是工会。在波兰，他们在这个几乎完全由国家控制的领域特别强大——如果没有他们的批准，实际上不可能实施任何重大改革。本文的主要目的是解释波兰和捷克共和国硬煤开采行业工会对 2015-2019 年该行业改革结果的影响。实证分析的框架是利益集团的理论输出和权力资源方法。衡量利益集团对决策过程的影响是利益集团研究的最大挑战之一。然而，实证分析使我们得出结论，波兰和捷克共和国矿业工会的目标是一致的，2015-2019 年引入的改革形式与这些目标趋同，工会的活动已经对这些改革产生了非常大的影响。然而，从长远来看，欧洲的硬煤开采正在衰退，工会只是试图阻止不可避免的事情。