On August 31, 1980, Poland’s communist rulers signed a key agreement with striking workers at the Gdańsk Shipyard that led to the establishment of Solidarity, the first independent trade union in then-communist Eastern Europe.
The Gdańsk Agreement followed strikes at the shipyard in the northern Polish city, with former employee Lech Wałęsa at the helm.
Workers at the Gdańsk Shipyard, led by Wałęsa, the face of the Solidarity freedom movement, went on strike in August 1980, demanding better pay, the reinstatement of an unfairly dismissed colleague, and a monument to workers who had died in protests 10 years earlier.
Workers from other cities joined the strike, forcing the communist regime to make concessions.
Poland's communist leader at the time, Edward Gierek, called for a peaceful solution to the conflict.
On August 31, after 18 days of a sit-in strike at the Gdańsk Shipyard and protests in over 700 workplaces across the country, the historic agreements were signed, marking the birth of Solidarity.
The landmark event caused a brief eruption of freedom of expression in Poland, before the clampdown of December 1981, when the communist authorities declared martial law.
Nevertheless, the communist regime eventually fell due to efforts by Solidarity campaigners, culminating in the Round Table Agreement of spring 1989 and the country's first partially free elections after World War II, a landmark vote on June 4, 1989 that heralded the collapse of communism in Poland after decades of Soviet-imposed authoritarian rule.
The Polish vote triggered a domino effect across the region, culminating in the fall of the Berlin Wall, a symbol of decades of division between Western Europe and the communist East.
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Source: IAR, PAP
