Lublin 1980 strikes
Encyclopedia
The Lublin 1980 strikes were the series of workers’ strikes in the area of the eastern city of Lublin
(People's Republic of Poland
), demanding better salaries and lower prices of food products. They began on July 8, 1980, at the State Aviation Works
in Świdnik
, a town located on the outskirts of Lublin. By mid-July, 1980, some 50,000 local workers from more than 150 enterprises went on strike. These strikes marked the beginning of important socio-political changes in Poland, such as the creation of Solidarity and democratization of the country, heralding a wave of protests later referred to as the August 1980
strikes.
, First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party
, gave a New Year's speech in which he admitted that Poland was in an economic slump, adding that the difficulties had been caused both by drought
in the summer of 1979 and by the severe winter of 1979-1980. More than a month later, on February 9, the Central Statistical Office disclosed data about Polish State revenue, announcing that compared to the previous year, it shrank by 2%. The growing crisis was also noticed by the Catholic Church. On February 18, Polish hierarchy with Primate Stefan Wyszynski, emphasized bad economic situation of the country and urged the government to talk to the nation.
In the following weeks, numerous price increases of several products were announced, such as gasoline, cigarettes, soft drinks, and then, on June 30, the nation was shocked to find out that a major increase in meat prices (up to 60%) had been announced. The increase also included the so-called meat products, available in canteens in Polish factories. Reaction of the workers was immediate. On the next day, strikes broke out in Warsaw's tractor plant Ursus, in the bus producer Autosan
in Sanok
, in the Communications Equipment Factory in Mielec
, in the car component factory Polmo in Tczew
and in the compressor plant Ponar in Tarnów
. In the Ursus tractor factory, the workers organised assemblies, composed a list of demands, and elected a strike committee. They resisted the threat of firings and repression and carried on work stoppages throughout the following period.
On July 1, the Politburo
of the Polish United Workers' Party gathered in Warsaw, but the protests were not even mentioned during talks. Meanwhile, major factories in Warsaw
joined the strike - Warsaw Steelworks, Mera-Centrum and Polkolor, as well as the cotton plant Stella in Żyrardów
.
in Świdnik
, in the Section W-340 of the factory. It was then that the Lublin July began, which later sparked the famous August 1980 wave of strikes in the cities on the Baltic coast. Norbert Wojciechowski, former Solidarity activist and spokesperson of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin
says that the collapse of the Communist system of Poland did not start in the Gdańsk Shipyard
in August 1980, but a month earlier in Lublin and Świdnik. Today, the factory in Świdnik is considered as the primary symbol of the social revolt of the year 1980, which led to the rise of Solidarity.
According to the strikers, it all began because of the price of pork chop dinner in the factory's canteen. On July 8, one worker noticed that overnight it had been increased by 80% - from 10.20 zlotys, to 18.10 zlotys. The workers, who for a long time had been complaining about prices and quality of food, decided that they had had enough. Following the inspiration of Miroslaw Kaczan who switched off the machines, Section W-340 was first, but after a few hours, the whole factory stopped working. On the same days, following Świdnik's example, workers of Lublin's branch of the state Polmozbyt auto parts and repairs service joined the strike. A Stoppage Committee was created in Świdnik, headed by Zofia Bartkiewicz, which demanded economic concessions. The workers did not use the irritating word strike on purpose.
On the next day, during the meeting of the Politburo in Warsaw, Edward Gierek assured the apparatchik
s that the difficulties were "temporary". Meanwhile, the strikes quickly quickly spread to other factories in Lublin and the surrounding region. Among striking plants, there were Factory of Agricultural Machines Agromet, Lublin Car Repairs Shop, Lublin's Truck Factory
and Lublin's Leather Factory. Workers of the Truck Factory also created their Strike Committee of 80 members, and demanded, among others, abolition of hard-currency shops
and special outlets for privileged groups of society, as well as raising their family allowances to the levels received by the army and militia
. Finally, their strike was settled for way less than had been demanded.
On July 12, the Świdnik factory, after its demands had been met, ended the strike, but by July 14, virtually the whole city of Lublin, together with the railroad network and city transit, came to a standstill. On strike were: Meat Factory, Lublin Factory of Scales, Poultry and Eggs Producer, City Transit Authority, Pharmaceutical and Herb Producer Herbapol, dairies, bakeries, the water heating plant, even the Work Cooperative for the Blind. Lublin's rail workers began the strike on July 16 and, according to a legend, the railwaymen welded an engine to a track. Ultimately 150 factories employing 50,000 workers joined the strike, and the rail workers were regarded as the most militant and a key component of the strike, because earlier promises of pay rises to them had been broken by the management. According to the CIA report, the situation was so serious that military vehicles were delivering food to stores and hospitals.
, Lubartów
, Opole Lubelskie
, Puławy, Tomaszów Lubelski
, Zamość
and in the crucial rail junction of Dęblin
. The strikes of the Lublin and Dęblin junctions paralyzed rail links between the Soviet Union and the Red Army
garrisons in the German Democratic Republic
. The direct reason for railway workers protesting was terrible working conditions. 'We repaired wagons in canals, completely smeared with mud', one of them recollected.
On July 18, one of sections of the Stalowa Wola
Steelworks joined the strike, which spread across other sections. According to Mariusz Mucha, a journalist associated with Solidarity, altogether in the area of Lublin, 177 factories, with 80 000 employees joined the strike. The demands dealt with wage increases and the cancellation of the price rises. The government granted wage increases: 10% on average, sometimes as high as 20%. Furthermore, the increases were sometimes granted in advance to strikers in order to calm the movement.
It must be mentioned, that during the strikes, the workers did not repeat mistakes of the Poznań 1956 protests
and the 1970 events in Pomerania
and avoided going out on the streets, instead staying in their factories. They came to work, stood at the machines and did not work. They managed to organise themselves, chose their representatives and negotiated to have their demands met.
, Jozef Pinkowski
, and Zdzislaw Kurowski, agreed to most of the demands, such as free Saturdays, improvement in food supplies and earlier retirement age. The city was flooded with posters with appeals to the society for peace and return to work.
The events of Lublin July 1980 brought a final break in the official, Communist so-called "propaganda of success" that systematically exaggerated the country's economic performance to keep the population in line. Even though they did not result in the creation of an independent trade union, they generated momentum for more strikes which soon spread throughout the entire country - on July 23, a strike began in the Cegielski Factories in Poznań
, in Warsaw's Fabryka Samochodów Osobowych, then in Łódź, Ostrów Wielkopolski
, and other cities. The compromise on salaries, worked out in Lublin and Świdnik, triggered a chain reaction as other workers demanded similar concessions. The process could not be stopped. Three weeks later the strikes on the Baltic coast started and there the workers successfully demanded political concessions. The result was the formation of independent trade unions and the beginning of the Solidarity movement.
Lublin
Lublin is the ninth largest city in Poland. It is the capital of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 350,392 . Lublin is also the largest Polish city east of the Vistula river...
(People's Republic of Poland
People's Republic of Poland
The People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
), demanding better salaries and lower prices of food products. They began on July 8, 1980, at the State Aviation Works
PZL-Swidnik
PZL Świdnik S.A is the biggest helicopter manufacturer in Poland. Its main products are PZL W-3 Sokół and PZL SW-4 Puszczyk helicopters...
in Świdnik
Swidnik
Świdnik is a town in eastern Poland with 42,797 inhabitants , situated in the Lublin Voivodeship, very near the city of Lublin. It is the capital of Świdnik County.-History:The village of Świdnik is first mentioned in historical records from 1392...
, a town located on the outskirts of Lublin. By mid-July, 1980, some 50,000 local workers from more than 150 enterprises went on strike. These strikes marked the beginning of important socio-political changes in Poland, such as the creation of Solidarity and democratization of the country, heralding a wave of protests later referred to as the August 1980
History of Solidarity
The history of Solidarity , a Polish non-governmental trade union, begins in August 1980, at the Lenin Shipyards at its founding by Lech Wałęsa and others. In the early 1980s, it became the first independent labor union in a Soviet-bloc country...
strikes.
Background
On January 1, 1980, Edward GierekEdward Gierek
Edward Gierek was a Polish communist politician.He was born in Porąbka, outside of Sosnowiec. He lost his father to a mining accident in a pit at the age of four. His mother married again and emigrated to northern France, where he was raised. He joined the French Communist Party in 1931 and was...
, First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party
Polish United Workers' Party
The Polish United Workers' Party was the Communist party which governed the People's Republic of Poland from 1948 to 1989. Ideologically it was based on the theories of Marxism-Leninism.- The Party's Program and Goals :...
, gave a New Year's speech in which he admitted that Poland was in an economic slump, adding that the difficulties had been caused both by drought
Drought
A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...
in the summer of 1979 and by the severe winter of 1979-1980. More than a month later, on February 9, the Central Statistical Office disclosed data about Polish State revenue, announcing that compared to the previous year, it shrank by 2%. The growing crisis was also noticed by the Catholic Church. On February 18, Polish hierarchy with Primate Stefan Wyszynski, emphasized bad economic situation of the country and urged the government to talk to the nation.
In the following weeks, numerous price increases of several products were announced, such as gasoline, cigarettes, soft drinks, and then, on June 30, the nation was shocked to find out that a major increase in meat prices (up to 60%) had been announced. The increase also included the so-called meat products, available in canteens in Polish factories. Reaction of the workers was immediate. On the next day, strikes broke out in Warsaw's tractor plant Ursus, in the bus producer Autosan
Autosan
Autosan S.A. is a Polish bus and coach manufacturer. The company is located in Sanok, Poland.Its sales network includes European , African and Asian countries.Currently it produces approximately 300 buses a year.-History:...
in Sanok
Sanok
Sanok is a town in south-eastern Poland with 39,110 inhabitants, as of 2 June 2009. It's the capital of Sanok County in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship. Previously, it was in the Krosno Voivodeship and in the Ruthenian Voivodeship , which was part of the Lesser Poland province...
, in the Communications Equipment Factory in Mielec
Mielec
Mielec is a city in south-eastern Poland with a population of 60,979 inhabitants, as of June 2009. It is located in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship ; previously it was in Rzeszów Voivodeship...
, in the car component factory Polmo in Tczew
Tczew
Tczew is a town on the Vistula River in Eastern Pomerania, Kociewie, northern Poland with 60,279 inhabitants . It is an important railway junction with a classification yard dating to the Prussian Eastern Railway...
and in the compressor plant Ponar in Tarnów
Tarnów
Tarnów is a city in southeastern Poland with 115,341 inhabitants as of June 2009. The city has been situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship since 1999, but from 1975 to 1998 it was the capital of the Tarnów Voivodeship. It is a major rail junction, located on the strategic east-west connection...
. In the Ursus tractor factory, the workers organised assemblies, composed a list of demands, and elected a strike committee. They resisted the threat of firings and repression and carried on work stoppages throughout the following period.
On July 1, the Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
of the Polish United Workers' Party gathered in Warsaw, but the protests were not even mentioned during talks. Meanwhile, major factories in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
joined the strike - Warsaw Steelworks, Mera-Centrum and Polkolor, as well as the cotton plant Stella in Żyrardów
Zyrardów
Żyrardów is a town in central Poland with 41,400 inhabitants . It is situated in the Masovian Voivodship ; previously, it was in Skierniewice Voivodship 45 km West of Warsaw. It is the capital of Żyrardów County...
.
Lublin strikes
First strike in the area of Lublin took place on July 8, 1980, in the State Aviation Works PZLPZL
PZL was the main Polish aerospace manufacturer of the interwar period, based in Warsaw, functioning in 1928-1939...
in Świdnik
Swidnik
Świdnik is a town in eastern Poland with 42,797 inhabitants , situated in the Lublin Voivodeship, very near the city of Lublin. It is the capital of Świdnik County.-History:The village of Świdnik is first mentioned in historical records from 1392...
, in the Section W-340 of the factory. It was then that the Lublin July began, which later sparked the famous August 1980 wave of strikes in the cities on the Baltic coast. Norbert Wojciechowski, former Solidarity activist and spokesperson of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin
John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin
John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin is located in Lublin, Poland. Presently it has an enrollment of over 19,000 students...
says that the collapse of the Communist system of Poland did not start in the Gdańsk Shipyard
Gdansk Shipyard
Gdańsk Shipyard is a large Polish shipyard, located in the city of Gdańsk. The yard gained international fame when Solidarity was founded there in September 1980...
in August 1980, but a month earlier in Lublin and Świdnik. Today, the factory in Świdnik is considered as the primary symbol of the social revolt of the year 1980, which led to the rise of Solidarity.
According to the strikers, it all began because of the price of pork chop dinner in the factory's canteen. On July 8, one worker noticed that overnight it had been increased by 80% - from 10.20 zlotys, to 18.10 zlotys. The workers, who for a long time had been complaining about prices and quality of food, decided that they had had enough. Following the inspiration of Miroslaw Kaczan who switched off the machines, Section W-340 was first, but after a few hours, the whole factory stopped working. On the same days, following Świdnik's example, workers of Lublin's branch of the state Polmozbyt auto parts and repairs service joined the strike. A Stoppage Committee was created in Świdnik, headed by Zofia Bartkiewicz, which demanded economic concessions. The workers did not use the irritating word strike on purpose.
On the next day, during the meeting of the Politburo in Warsaw, Edward Gierek assured the apparatchik
Apparatchik
Apparatchik is a Russian colloquial term for a full-time, professional functionary of the Communist Party or government; i.e., an agent of the governmental or party "apparat" that held any position of bureaucratic or political responsibility, with the exception of the higher ranks of management...
s that the difficulties were "temporary". Meanwhile, the strikes quickly quickly spread to other factories in Lublin and the surrounding region. Among striking plants, there were Factory of Agricultural Machines Agromet, Lublin Car Repairs Shop, Lublin's Truck Factory
Fabryka Samochodów Ciezarowych
FSC is a large automotive factory established in Poland while it was part of the Soviet bloc. It was founded in 1950 and the first vehicle left its assembly line on November 7, 1951...
and Lublin's Leather Factory. Workers of the Truck Factory also created their Strike Committee of 80 members, and demanded, among others, abolition of hard-currency shops
Pewex
Pewex was a chain of hard currency shops in communist Poland...
and special outlets for privileged groups of society, as well as raising their family allowances to the levels received by the army and militia
Milicja Obywatelska
Milicja Obywatelska was a state police institution in the People's Republic of Poland. It was created in 1944 by Soviet-sponsored PKWN, effectively replacing the pre-war police force. In 1990 it was transformed back into Policja....
. Finally, their strike was settled for way less than had been demanded.
On July 12, the Świdnik factory, after its demands had been met, ended the strike, but by July 14, virtually the whole city of Lublin, together with the railroad network and city transit, came to a standstill. On strike were: Meat Factory, Lublin Factory of Scales, Poultry and Eggs Producer, City Transit Authority, Pharmaceutical and Herb Producer Herbapol, dairies, bakeries, the water heating plant, even the Work Cooperative for the Blind. Lublin's rail workers began the strike on July 16 and, according to a legend, the railwaymen welded an engine to a track. Ultimately 150 factories employing 50,000 workers joined the strike, and the rail workers were regarded as the most militant and a key component of the strike, because earlier promises of pay rises to them had been broken by the management. According to the CIA report, the situation was so serious that military vehicles were delivering food to stores and hospitals.
Other locations
Even though the official mass-media did not inform about the strikes, events of Lublin became known in the area. Soon afterwards, strikes began in such towns, as Chełm, KraśnikKrasnik
Kraśnik is a town in eastern Poland with 37,989 inhabitants , situated in the Lublin Voivodeship. It is the seat of Kraśnik County.-History:First settled in the 13th century, it received its city charter in 1377....
, Lubartów
Lubartów
Lubartów is a town in eastern Poland, with 23,000 inhabitants , situated in Lublin Voivodeship. It is the capital of Lubartów County and the Lubartów Commune.-History:...
, Opole Lubelskie
Opole Lubelskie
Opole Lubelskie is a town in eastern Poland. It has 8,879 inhabitants . The town is situated in the Lublin Voivodeship, some 10 kilometers east of the Vistula river. It is the capital of the Opole Lubelskie County. It was founded in the 14th century....
, Puławy, Tomaszów Lubelski
Tomaszów Lubelski
Tomaszów Lubelski is a town in south-eastern Poland with 20,261 inhabitants . Situated in the Lublin Voivodeship , previously in Zamość Voivodeship . It is the capital of Tomaszów Lubelski County.-History:...
, Zamość
Zamosc
Zamość ukr. Замостя is a town in southeastern Poland with 66,633 inhabitants , situated in the south-western part of Lublin Voivodeship , about from Lublin, from Warsaw and from the border with Ukraine...
and in the crucial rail junction of Dęblin
Deblin
Dęblin is a town, population 19,500 , at the confluence of Vistula and Wieprz rivers, in Lublin Voivodeship, Poland. Dęblin is the part of the agglomeration with adjacent towns of Ryki and Puławy, which altogether has over 100 000 inhabitants....
. The strikes of the Lublin and Dęblin junctions paralyzed rail links between the Soviet Union and the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
garrisons in the German Democratic Republic
German Democratic Republic
The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
. The direct reason for railway workers protesting was terrible working conditions. 'We repaired wagons in canals, completely smeared with mud', one of them recollected.
On July 18, one of sections of the Stalowa Wola
Stalowa Wola
Stalowa Wola is the largest city and capital of Stalowa Wola County with a population of 64,353 inhabitants, as of June 2008. It is located in southeastern Poland in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship...
Steelworks joined the strike, which spread across other sections. According to Mariusz Mucha, a journalist associated with Solidarity, altogether in the area of Lublin, 177 factories, with 80 000 employees joined the strike. The demands dealt with wage increases and the cancellation of the price rises. The government granted wage increases: 10% on average, sometimes as high as 20%. Furthermore, the increases were sometimes granted in advance to strikers in order to calm the movement.
It must be mentioned, that during the strikes, the workers did not repeat mistakes of the Poznań 1956 protests
Poznan 1956 protests
The Poznań 1956 protests, also known as Poznań 1956 uprising or Poznań June , were the first of several massive protests of the Polish people against the communist government of the People's Republic of Poland...
and the 1970 events in Pomerania
Polish 1970 protests
The Polish 1970 protests were protests that occurred in northern Poland in December 1970. The protests were sparked by a sudden increase of prices of food and other everyday items...
and avoided going out on the streets, instead staying in their factories. They came to work, stood at the machines and did not work. They managed to organise themselves, chose their representatives and negotiated to have their demands met.
Aftermath
In most cases, the government was willing to resolve the strikes in favor of the workers, by "buying them off", so long as the strikers did not demand independent trade unions. The last strikes in Lublin ended on July 25, after a delegation of the government, together with Mieczyslaw JagielskiMieczyslaw Jagielski
Mieczysław Jagielski was a Polish politician and economist. During the times of the People's Republic of Poland he was the last leading politician from the former eastern regions of pre-Second World War Poland....
, Jozef Pinkowski
Józef Pinkowski
Józef Pińkowski was a Polish Communist politician who served as Prime Minister from 1980 to 1981....
, and Zdzislaw Kurowski, agreed to most of the demands, such as free Saturdays, improvement in food supplies and earlier retirement age. The city was flooded with posters with appeals to the society for peace and return to work.
The events of Lublin July 1980 brought a final break in the official, Communist so-called "propaganda of success" that systematically exaggerated the country's economic performance to keep the population in line. Even though they did not result in the creation of an independent trade union, they generated momentum for more strikes which soon spread throughout the entire country - on July 23, a strike began in the Cegielski Factories in Poznań
Poznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
, in Warsaw's Fabryka Samochodów Osobowych, then in Łódź, Ostrów Wielkopolski
Ostrów Wielkopolski
Ostrów Wielkopolski is a town in central Poland with 72,360 inhabitants , situated in the Greater Poland Voivodeship; the seat of Ostrów Wielkopolski County.-History:Recently, a small fortified dwelling dating from the 10th century was discovered on the north-east side of...
, and other cities. The compromise on salaries, worked out in Lublin and Świdnik, triggered a chain reaction as other workers demanded similar concessions. The process could not be stopped. Three weeks later the strikes on the Baltic coast started and there the workers successfully demanded political concessions. The result was the formation of independent trade unions and the beginning of the Solidarity movement.
External links
See also
- Poznań 1956 protestsPoznan 1956 protestsThe Poznań 1956 protests, also known as Poznań 1956 uprising or Poznań June , were the first of several massive protests of the Polish people against the communist government of the People's Republic of Poland...
- Polish 1970 protestsPolish 1970 protestsThe Polish 1970 protests were protests that occurred in northern Poland in December 1970. The protests were sparked by a sudden increase of prices of food and other everyday items...
- Jastrzębie-Zdrój 1980 strikesJastrzebie-Zdrój 1980 strikesThe Jastrzębie-Zdrój 1980 strikes were widespread strikes, which took place mostly in the Upper Silesian mining city of Jastrzębie-Zdrój and its surroundings, in late August and early September of 1980. They forced the Government of People's Republic of Poland to sign the last of three agreements...