Anna Walentynowicz – 1929-2010

Whilst today’s terrible plane crash is obviously being reported from the perspective of the loss of the Polish President Lech Kaczynski – one of the leading figures of Poland’s Law and Order Party (the nationalist, and severely homophobic, former governing party, which sits with the Tories’ far right friends in Europe), also on the plane was the 80 year old Anna Walentynowicz.

In 1980, Anna was coming up for retirement in the shipyards of Gdansk, where she’d worked for 30 years as a welder and crane operator. She’d become disillusioned with Polish communism, after seing how it restricted workers’ rights to organise, and she took up editorship of the propaganda flyer, “The Coastal Worker”, campaigning against sexism in work,corruption in management and the government licensed trade unions, and in favour of the country’s free trade union movement.

Handing out the magazine in person – and indeed giving copies of it to her bosses – was a risky step, and was considered provocation enough for her to be fired – 5 months ahead of her planned retirement. This was the catalyst that seven days later caused the shipyard workers to walk out on strike in protest – the action that was to lead to her reinstatement, along with Lech Walesa, but also to the signing of the Gdansk Agreement which gave the right to workers to form free unions, and hence the formation of Solidarnosc.

From a flyer issued on her dismissal, now nearly thirty years ago:

“This matter demonstrates that the administration of the shipyard does not care about public opinion or legal procedure, which it violates forcing people to bend with its whims. Anna Walentynowicz has been a thorn in their side, because she is a model activist devoted to others. She is a thorn in their side because she defends others and is capable of organizing her colleagues… We appeal to you, defend the crane operator Walentynowicz.”

I was only dimly aware of the world shaking events that would follow in Poland – being more concerned at the time with my growing collection of Matchbox cars – but it gave me pause today to think about the contribution of Anna Walentnowicz and so many like her. Profoundly brave free trade unionists, whose legacy is moving now from yellowing newsprint into the stone tablets of history.

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7 thoughts on “Anna Walentynowicz – 1929-2010

  1. I hate to burst your bubble but the Labour Party & the TUC fought tooth and nail against Solidarity and even applauded their banning and the arrest of its leaders by the Polish Junta in 1982. And who led the chorus – none other than John Prescott and wee Jackie Jones. So much for solidarity of the masses.

  2. This is not true:

    “Poland’s Law and Order Party (the nationalist, and severely homophobic, former governing party, which sits with the Tories’ far right friends in Europe)”

    Mr. Kaczynski, himself a scolar in the field of labour law, was best described as socialist. He was serving the underground Solidarity worker activists with legal advice. The Law and Order party is at the center left of political scene.

    If patriotism and little regard for political correctness are “nationalist” and “severely homophobic” in your dictionary, then I’m afraid we must speak different languages…

  3. Thanks for that, and I think we probably do speak fairly different languages. (Clumsy error on my part too, sorry – it’s Law and Justice, not Law and Order, which is a NZ party, and of course not to be confused with Order and Justice in Lithuania…)

    Kaminski was indeed first elected in the Solidarity Electoral Action grouping, though he seems to have travelled all over the place. His Wikipedia entry has a nice quote from his pal Dan Hannan, describing him as a free-marketeer, Euro-sceptic Atlantacist, and “the closest thing to a British Tory outside the Carlton Club” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha%C5%82_Kami%C5%84ski

    Sticking with Wikipedia, Law and Justice seem to have a pretty standard overall platform for conservative Christian Democrats, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_and_Justice but it’s their pals in European Conservatives and Reformists that have got them more attention over here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Conservatives_and_Reformists

    If Kaminski’s a socialist and still manages to head up ECR, he must be pretty fluent in a different language too…

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