Solidarity (Polish trade union): Difference between revisions

Solidarity
Independent Self-governing Trade Union "Solidarity"
Niezależny Samorządny Związek Zawodowy "Solidarność"
Founded	September 1980
Members	1,185,000 (2006)
Affiliations	ITUC, ETUC, TUAC
Website	www.solidarnosc.org.pl; (In English)

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Solidarity (Template:Audio-pl; full name: Independent Self-governing Trade Union "Solidarity" — Niezależny Samorządny Związek Zawodowy "Solidarność") is a Polish trade union federation founded in September 1980 at the then Lenin Shipyards, and originally led by Lech Wałęsa.

It was the first non-communist trade union in a communist country. In the 1980s it constituted a broad anti-communist social movement. The government attempted to destroy the union with the martial law of 1981 and several years of repressions, but in the end it had to start negotiating with the union. The Roundtable Talks between the weakened government and Solidarity-led opposition led to semi-free elections in 1989. By the end of August a Solidarity-led coalition government was formed and in December Wałęsa was elected President of Poland.

Since then it has become a more traditional trade union, and had relatively little impact on the political scene of Poland in the early 1990s. A political arm was founded in 1996 as Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS) won the Polish parliamentary election, 1997, but lost the following Polish parliamentary election, 2001. Currently, Solidarity, or the remnants of it, has little political influence in modern Polish politics.

History

File:Strike Gdansk 1980.jpg

1980 strike at Gdańsk Shipyard, birthplace of Solidarity.

Solidarity began in September 1980 at the Lenin Shipyards, where Lech Wałęsa and others formed a broad anti-communist social movement ranging from people associated with the Catholic Church^[2] to members of the anti-communist Left. Solidarity advocated nonviolence in its members' activities.^[3]^[4] The government attempted to destroy the union with the martial law of 1981 and several years of repressions, but in the end it had to start negotiating with the union.

In Poland, the Roundtable Talks between the weakened government and Solidarity-led opposition led to semi-free elections in 1989. By the end of August a Solidarity-led coalition government was formed and in December Wałęsa was elected prime minister. Since 1989 Solidarity has become a more traditional trade union, and had relatively little impact on the political scene of Poland in the early 1990s. A political arm founded in 1996 as Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS) won the parliamentary election in 1997, but lost the following 2001 election. Currently Solidarity has little political influence in modern Polish politics.

Catholic social teaching

In Solicitudo Rei Socialis, a major document of Catholic Social Teaching, Pope John Paul II identifies the concept of solidarity with the poor and marginalized as a constituative element of the Gospel and essential for lasting peace.

Influence abroad

The survival of Solidarity was an unprecedented event not only in Poland, a satellite state of the USSR ruled (in practice) by a one-party Communist regime, but the whole of the Eastern bloc. It meant a break in the hard-line stance of the communist Polish United Workers' Party, which had bloodily ended a 1970 protest with machine gun fire (killing dozens and injuring over 1,000), and the broader Soviet communist regime in the Eastern Bloc, which had quelled both the 1956 Hungarian Uprising and the 1968 Prague Spring with Soviet-led invasions.

Solidarity's influence led to the intensification and spread of anti-communist ideals and movements throughout the countries of the Eastern Bloc, weakening their communist governments. The 1989 elections in Poland where anti-communist candidates won a striking victory sparked off a succession of peaceful anti-communist revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe^[2] known as the Revolutions of 1989 (Jesień Ludów). Solidarity's example was in various ways repeated by opposition groups throughout the Eastern Bloc, eventually leading to the Eastern Bloc's effectual dismantling, and contributing to the collapse of the Soviet Union, in the early 1990s.

Organization

Formed in 1981, the union's supreme powers were vested in a legislative body, the Convention of Delegates (Zjazd Delegatow). The executive branch was the National Coordinating Commission (Krajowa Komisja Porozumiewawcza), later renamed the National Commission (Komisja Krajowa). The Union had a regional structure, comprising 38 regions (region) and two districts (okręg).

Solidarity was organized as an industrial union along the lines of the Industrial Workers of the World and the Spanish Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (workers in every trade were organized by region, rather than by craft as is the practice in American trade unions).^[5]

Currently, Solidarity has more than 1.1 million members. National Commission of Independent Self-Governing Trade Union is located in Gdańsk and is composed of Delegates from Regional General Congresses.

Chairmen

References

^ "WHAT IS THE NSZZ SOLIDARNOSC ?". Solidarnosc.org. Retrieved 2006-07-06.
^ ^a ^b Steger, Manfred B (Jan 2004). Judging Nonviolence: The Dispute Between Realists and Idealists (ebook). Routledge (UK). pp. p114. ISBN 0-415-93397-8. Retrieved 2006-07-09. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
^ Paul Wehr, Guy Burgess, Heidi Burgess, ed. (1993). Justice Without Violence (ebook). Lynne Rienner Publishers. pp. p28. ISBN 1-55587-491-6. Retrieved 2006-07-06. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
^ Cavanaugh-O'Keefe, John (2001). Emmanuel, Solidarity: God's Act, Our Response (ebook). Xlibris Corporation. pp. p68. ISBN 0-7388-3864-0. Retrieved 2006-07-06. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
^ Template:Pl icon Solidarność NSZZ in WIEM Encyklopedia. Last accessed on 10 October 2006