Word: gdansk
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Gdansk accords had promised Solidarity access to the state broadcasting networks, but it never was given regular
...twelve-man presidium accepted a compromise version of the government's self-management bill. It would give workers' councils the right to choose managers at most enterprises; the state could veto nominees it found objectionable. Parlament passed the plan into law the day before the union delegates returned to Gdansk. A dangerous union-government showdown was thereby averted...
...deft move, but it cost Walesa some of his popularity. When the Gdansk congress reconvened, Walesa's high-handed style became the central issue. Attacked in speech after speech for compromising with the government without consulting the rank and file, Walesa had to fight three radical candidates to keep his job. He was elected, but his 55.2% of the vote showed that his hold over the movement had slipped markedly since his Lenin shipyard triumph...
...concessions extraordinary in a Communist country, including reduced censorship and access to the state broadcasting networks for the unions and the church. At a nationally televised ceremony, where strikers and government representatives stood side by side and sang the Polish national anthem, Walesa signed what became known as the Gdansk agreement with a giant souvenir pen bearing the likeness of John Paul...
...head of a labor federation that soon grew to 10 million members?fully a quarter of the Polish population. Organizing and controlling the loosely knit federation, which was divided into 38 semiautonomous regional chapters, soon became a major challenge for Walesa and the national commission that he headed in Gdansk. The job was complicated by an almost insatiable drive for democracy among a rank and file that had no experience with the democratic process. Most of the Solidarity activists were young. They were both angry and exuberant: bitter over the party's moral and material bankruptcy, giddy with the sense...