Historical calendar: August 17, 1980 – Shipowners announce 21 postulates

Anniversary of the establishment of the Inter-founded Strike Committee and its announcement of the celebrated 21 labour demands.

Today in our calendar we will look at the events that led to the first first “Solidarity”.

Strikes have spread over the PRL since the beginning of July 1980. He stopped his work in Lublin, Sanoku, Świdnik and Poznań. Subsequent appearances were planned by the Coast WZZ. Authorities found out about this from informants installed in the organization. At the time, all secret collaborators of uniform services, specified as Jerzy Kozłowski “Kolega” and Lech Wałęsa, were mobilized, acting earlier under the pseudonym "Bolek".

The decision to strike was deliberately accelerated by the management of Gdańsk Shipyard, which threw out a well-known activist Anna Walentynowicz. It was an apparent provocation to escalate the conflict in order to carry out a controlled crisis with the people under the leadership. Unconscious of the provocation oppositionists, they printed a mass of leaflets which they decided to hand out to Poles throughout the three-city in the morning of August 14.

One of the persons designated for the sale was Lech Wałęsa, but not only did he not personally show up, but he besides did not notify the actions of those who were assigned to aid him. He had another plans. According to the study of LWP soldier Jerzy Maleszka, who served in Oxyvia on 13 August 1980, a black ox arrived at the naval base after 6 p.m. with SB and Walesa officers.

This group would then go to the docked P1 motorboat and sail distant from this place. The next day, Wałęsa arrived at the strike a fewer hours after it began. According to conflicting accounts, he was introduced to the yard by TW Kolega (a celebrated jump through the fence) or was delivered there by a motorboat, after final consultation with the naval commander.

This second version was confirmed in his diary by manufacture minister Aleksander Kopieć (one of the negotiators during the crisis on the Coast). He recorded that Admiral Ludwik Janczyszyn confided in him as 1 of the organizers of the transport of Wałęsa with a motorboat to the Shipyard. The alleged findings in the naval command may explain the celebrated “delay” Wanders for a strike. The case is inactive a mystery.

Apart from the way in which TW Bolka was delivered to the area of the strike, it began in the morning, on August 14, 1980, with the pillow of Bogdan Borusewicz, without the cognition of the management of the WZZ. The basis of the demands was the issue of bringing Anna Valentynowicz back to work and social and wage issues. The slogans "Socialism yes, distortion no" and "Proletarians of all establishments connect" were chanted.

There were besides demands of a political nature: commemoration of the Victims of December 1970. The key in all this was that during the protest there were no WZZ's most crucial activists in Gdańsk Shipyard, due to the fact that they had previously been fired from their work and were not allowed into it.

Under specified conditions, the management of the revolutionous crowd took over Lech Wales. His leadership function was sealed by Jerzy Borovczak, who throated behind “Bolk” in the media (including abroad ones) arriving at the shipyard at the end of the strike. Why Wałęsa? Borusewicz himself explained this in an interview entitled “The Grey Eminence” of 1991.

He stated: “It had to be individual to be accepted by the another side—that is, for power. Wałęsa was the best candidate." In any case, the full Poland and the planet were told that Lech Wałęsa, the hero of the workers, was the head of the business strike. On August 15, fresh protests broke out, e.g. in the Gdynia shipyard, where protesters were headed by Andrzej Kołodziej, employed there just the day before. That day almost a full three-city stopped.

On 16 August, talks were held between the strikers and the management of the shipyards. A $1,500 increase was agreed for her employees, after which Wałęsa announced the end of the strike.

Everything would have ended according to the authorities, had it not been for the vigorous action of WZZ activists, including Andrzej and Joanna Starów, who drove around “the beetle” a crucial number of establishments and convinced workers to proceed the protest. On 17 August an Inter-founded Strike Committee (MKS) was established and 21 requests were submitted to the authorities.

Among most legitimate demands related to freedom of speech and economical reforms, a extremist increase in social facilities, in the form of 3-year maternity leave, free Saturdays and a simplification in retirement age to 50 (women) and 55 (men).

Earlier events and media sound around Wałęsa caused that it was agreed to take over the leading function in the MKS.

In the face of a prolonged strike, the authorities decided to fight protesters with the remainder of the population. government media cited unjustified breaks at work, which only increased the problems with the supply of the interior market. Besides, in addition to being installed between protesting agents, fresh ones were attempted to coopt. On 22 August, 2 representatives of the capital intellectuals arrived at Gdańsk Shipyard in a peculiar plane from Warsaw.

They have declared themselves opponents of the strategy who want to advise strikers. The first of them was the hebrew Beniamin Lewertow (Bronisław Geremek) – historian, associate of the PZPR from 1950 to 1968, in the 1950s a fierce brewer Joseph Stalin and a government scholarshipee in the US and France, secretary of the primary organization organization at the University of Warsaw.

The second was Tadeusz Mazowiecki, who, in Stalin's day, criticized “soldiers cursed” as “ yesterday's oppressors from Dachau and Oświęcim” and crashed from the mediate of Catholic circles within the PAX association. Unaware of the threat of the MKS, he agreed to set up the alleged Expert Committee.

Despite efforts, Geremek and Mazowieckie failed to persuade shipbuilders to abandon the call for independent trade unions. shortly a government delegation with Mieczysław Jagielski arrived in Gdańsk. It was intended to resolve the dispute with protesters, but only repeated earlier proposals of "experts". The talks continued, while more bets from across the country entered the strike.

Feared by the massiveness of social resistance, the government agreed to the demands made. On 31 August, an agreement was signed, allowing, among others, the formation of independent, self-government trade unions. akin agreements as in Gdańsk were concluded in Szczecin and Jastrzębie. Years later, it turned out that in all 3 places, strike committee leaders were active in cooperation with authorities and SB.

Previous entry from our calendar is available Here.