Word: unionization
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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...seedy Morski Hotel in Gdansk, where Solidarity has its headquarters, there is unanimity on goals but little agreement on tactics. Indeed, listening to the leaders talk strategy, it seems remarkable that Walesa has managed to check Solidarity's innate militancy. Says Bogdan Lis, 28, the only union leader who belongs to the Communist Party: "None of us has trust or belief in those people [the authorities]. We consider them opponents." Alina Pienkowska, 28, a meek-looking nurse who is actually a firebrand, says the authorities have to prove that "the renewal of our life doesn't end with...
...afterglow of its August victory, the union negotiated by ultimatum: either give us what we want or we will strike. But the rank and file became more cautious late last month after the Warsaw local threatened a general strike over a series of political demands, some of which were aimed at the state security apparatus, the bedrock of Communist authority. Said Walesa then: "Let us not forget that tanks and rockets could also be the reply." On Dec. 5, Solidarity declared a six-week moratorium on strikes. It also toned down its rhetoric. When the government suspended screenings of Workers...
...troubled the Kremlin even so: "We do have to have a settling of accounts. Right now we have to work on odnowa." Some Solidarity theoreticians, while conceding the party its "leading role," tend to define that role narrowly. Says Jacek Kuron, a dissident intellectual and senior adviser to the union: "It means the monopoly of power over the police forces, the army and foreign policy. All other matters must be open to negotiation with society...
Solidarity's strike moratorium could get a severe test next week, when the Polish Supreme Court is expected to decide whether private farmers can form an independent union. So far the authorities have resisted, arguing that the farmers are self-employed and thus cannot bargain as employees. The farmers contend that they are in effect state employees, since the government sets their prices. At a meeting last week, they warned of a possible strike if their union is not recognized. It was not a threat the authorities could take lightly, since private farmers own 75% of Poland...
...fledgling union, known as Rural Solidarity, claims to represent 500,000 of the 3.2 million private farmers. Long bitter about government policies that favored less efficient collectives, the farmers are demanding equitable distribution of machinery and supplies to private owners, as well as increased government aid. They also want religious instruction in schools, preservation of traditional rural culture, and social benefits such as paid vacations, health insurance and pensions equal to those of industrial workers...