Solidarity In Poland

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worker explained the situation that arouse at Lenin Shipyard that morning:
When I entered the Gdansk Shipyard, I could feel the tension. As usual, everyone was going to their workplace, but on each face you could see something serious was going on. When I reached the hangar of S-5, above which was my office, I noticed that all the machines were shut off even though the workers started their shift at 6:00 while we started at 6:45. The workers stood in one place talking. Someone was trying to explain to them but he was immediately drowned out with whistles and yells (Laba, 21).
1,000 workers left the shipyard and began a march towards the city square in downtown Gdansk. The march turned violent when police started to use gas and clubs to disperse the march. Government buildings were subsequently vandalized and set on fire. The strike spread to Gdynia and other factories in Gdansk. The riots ended in Gdynia when militiamen fired shots and killed some of the workers. The ...

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strike. He negotiated a deal with management and signed the agreement to end the strike. However other workers were still striking, so Walesa broke the agreement in order for the others to get the advantages that the workers of the Lenin Shipyard had received. Walesa said, "We must continue the strike out of solidarity, until everybody has won"(Touraine, 37). Other workers also refused a 50% salary increase in order to stick together.
This is when the Inter-Factory Strike Committee (MKS) was formed. Many intellectuals now came out publicly to support a free trade union in the forms of their organizations like, KIK (Clubs of Catholic Intellectuals), the KOR (Workers' Defense ...

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