Word: lech
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...brown apartment building across town, meanwhile, Lech Walesa arrived with a bunch of gladioli and a large crucifix to open up the temporary union headquarters. He stretched out his hands, looked skyward and proclaimed: "I am in an empty room, but one full of hope." Walesa said that he and the other members of the Gdansk strike committee would serve as interim officers until elections can be held; but he confessed that no one yet knows how the new unions will operate. The settlement stipulated that any worker could choose to remain in the old party-controlled unions and even...
...mouth. This time, however, instead of a rousing exhortation to militancy, his message was a somber admonition: to curtail the spread of further strikes across his nation and give the government the necessary breath a while. "It is not good to have Poland terrorized," the strike leader, Lech Walesa, told the crowd. "The people must have food. Poland can only last for a few more days under these conditions." Then, with a more characteristic tone of defiance, he added, "If we don't get results in a few days, then let the strikes spread...
...elections to the party-controlled Central Council of Trade Unions. Instead of the current system, under which the outgoing representatives propose 85% of the candidates, the new vote would be open to an unlimited number of candidates-including the current strike leaders. The workers in Gdansk remained unimpressed. Said Lech Walesa: "We are not politicians. We are not interested in politics. We want our own trade union...
...born speaker," Lech Walesa shouted to hundreds of people gathered outside the gates of the Lenin Shipyard. "I'm just a simple worker, so forgive me if I use simple language." Simple it may be, but it is the language the striking workers of Poland's Baltic coast understand and respond to. In the three weeks since the Gdansk strike began, Walesa (pronounced Vah-wen-sah) has become an authentic hero. Wherever he walked across the idle yard, workers would break into spontaneous applause. A few would run up for his autograph. Each evening when he climbed...
Last week, during a subcommittee-level bargaining session, Walesa strolled to the gate to bring those outside up to date. Surrounded by bodyguards and a gaggle of photographers and television cameramen, he looked like a U.S. political candidate on the prowl for votes. "Ladies and gentlemen, Lech Walesa," a man with a microphone announced, and the crowd let go with a lusty "hip, hip, hurrah!" Walesa told the crowd that although the government was trying to undermine the workers, "your strike committee is participating fully in your strike, and in your effort for a victory...