During commemorations in Lublin, Morawiecki said that Poland’s ’’way to freedom” started in the city.
„Without those difficult, courageous, important steps, taken here in the summer of 1980, it is difficult to imagine Poland’s August strikes, Polish Solidarity movement and Poland’s path to freedom.”
The series of workers strikes, began on July 8, 1980 at the Communication Equipment Factory in Świdnik, at the outskirts of Lublin and quickly spread across the entire region.
By mid-July, 80,000 local workers from more than 160 enterprises went on strike, protesting against the communist government’s decision to increase food prices.
The series of strikes in Lublin is widely regarded by historians to have sparked the famous August 1980 strikes on the Baltic Coast, and paved the way to the rise of Poland’s anti-communist Solidarity movement.
(tf)
Source: PAP