Workers at the Gdańsk shipyard, led by Lech Wałęsa, the face of Solidarity in Poland, went on strike in August 1980, demanding better pay, the reinstatement of an unfairly sacked colleague, and a monument to workers who had died in protests 10 years earlier.
Workers from other cities joined the strike, leading the communist regime to make concessions.
Negotiations opened between the so-called Interfactory Strike Committee and the government. Talks touched on key themes such as censorship restrictions, the release of political prisoners and allowing the Church to participate in radio and television programmes.
The first of the strikers' 21 demands was key: “Acceptance of free trade unions that are independent of the party, and of enterprises, in accordance with convention No. 87 of the International Labor Organization concerning the right to form free trade unions.”
That demand was too controversial for the communist authorities to accept due to the word "free," so the strike committee negotiators changed it to "independent, self-governing trade unions," and this wording was finally accepted by the communist government.
Radio Poland's Agnieszka Bielawska has the story.
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