Solidarity Movement In Poland In 1980-1981
Solidarity, a Polish non-governmental trade union, was founded in 1980 by Lech Walesa at Lenin Shipyards (Eringer, 29). Solidarity soon became the sole organization that carried out strikes in various parts of the country starting from Lublin, a coastal city (Staniszkis, 44). Being a part of the Soviet Bloc, it had communist government and because of this the labor force considered itself useless as they were not able to strike against the governmental acts. The causes of its creation largely depended upon the decade long economical crises. Poland was actively involved in the cold war and due to its weak economy had to rely on debts which were increasing all the time.
In 1980, Polish government in essence to its obligation toward debts increased the prices of food and other daily used items and decreased the wages of the labor workers. This started a string of unrest in 1980. As the population became frustrated some of the workers were sacked as well including Lech Walesa, an electrician, in 1976 and Anna Walentynowicz, a popular crane operator and an activist against the government polices in 1980 at Lenin Shipyards. This triggered a response from all the workers as they decided to boycott and gathered at Lenin Shipyards. Lech Walesa arrived at Lenin Shipyards on 14 August, 2008 and formed a strike committee. This committee required a free trade organization having no influence from the communist government and a platform where the workers can get together for their mutual benefits. This was the start of fall of communism in Poland and the demands of this kind were the first in whole of Soviet Bloc.
The agenda of committee was designed in next few days. The word of mouth was used as an effective mode communication to spread the message which asked workers from all parts of the country to join it. Government was aware of these advancements and they used different means to limit the spreading of this movement. Soon telephone connections with the coastal cities were cut from the main Poland and transporters were banned to move to Lublin and other coastal areas where the movement was firing. The government also forced censorship and filtered out media to not include the news about this movement. However, different strike committees from different parts of the country started to gather at Lenin Shipyards and with mutual understanding between these committees, an agreement took place which allowed the formation of Inter-Enterprise Strike Committee on 16th August, 1980. Though this new committee was formed on the basis of worker rights including increase in wages and more job security, the 17th August performance of a priest Henryk Jankowski put forward much more demands from the government. The demands included the freeing of the political prisoners, relaxation in the food prices, free worker unions in different industries, insurance against the workers including a definite increase in the wages, the new ways to define the role of the church making it free to propel without any governmental influence, public rights of living freely, removing of the censorships both in media and newspapers and specific steps in the health insurance, soon this became the agenda of the movement which was fiercely increasing in popularity. A dissent group, Workers Defense Committee, also arrived at Lenin Shipyards to offer their services for negotiations with the government. This group was formed in 1976 in order to protect workers’ rights and helping out those who have been victimized by various means. A news sheet, Solidarnosc, was also started to be published in a press in Shipyards and more than 30,000 copies of it were sold daily which critically increased the popularity of Solidarity around the country. Jacek Kaczmarski also wrote a protest song against the government called Murry, meaning Walls, became the song of the movement.
The movement soon became the hot issue in the Eastern Europe. Though its existence was only in Poland, many strike committees from different parts of Poland started to join the federation. Various Shipyards were soon closed in days and the coastal trade was halt with critically undermining the economic growth. Factory and mining workers also moved to the coastal areas for the boycott against the communist government policies. Within days more than 200 factories were closed and soon whole industrial area of Poland was affected.
The government took these matters seriously and then reached a formal agreement with the committee. The agreement is known as August Agreement that allowed the workers to strike. Though having a free labor union was still being negotiating, it was a good sign for the committee that their needs were now being represented clearly.
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