Word: shipyards
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...days later, the shipyard's strike committee accepted a $50-per-month pay raise and agreed to return to work; the increase would have raised a typical shipyard worker's monthly pay to $385, more than twice the national average of $172 for other industries, in fact. But the decision was overturned by the rank-and-file, who refused to "betray the other strikers." In an abrupt about-face, Strike Leader Lech Walesa, a 37-year-old electrician, told shipyard workers: "We must fight alongside them until...
Work stoppages also broke out at the massive Nowa Huta steel complex, near Cracow. There were even reports of strike activity in the mining region of Silesia, Gierek's birthplace and political stronghold. At the Gdansk shipyard, which remained the nerve center of the Baltic upheaval, workers set up a central committee that claimed to represent the striking factories and enterprises along the coast...
...situation. He canceled a scheduled summit meeting with West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt,* and sent a task force to negotiate with the strikers in Gdansk. But the regime shrewdly insisted on talking to workers from individual factories, rejecting any dealings with the Interfactory Strike Committee based at the Lenin Shipyard. "They do not represent the workers," explained a Polish government spokesman in Warsaw. Added a party official in Gdansk: "We want each factory to settle individually...
Neither the arrests nor Gierek's appeals to reason appeared to bring the strikes any closer to a settlement. In the grimy, red-brick conference hall of Lenin Shipyard, Gierek's speech was greeted with derision. "He said nothing new at all," said a dockworker from Gdynia. "He talked to us as if we were children." Many workers ignored the speech entirely, basking shirtless in the sun and playing cards during the live broadcast...
...advice to organize peacefully rather than riot, the Gdansk strikers have established a remarkable degree of order and discipline. "After seeing protesters elsewhere shaking their fists and screaming, this is soul-rending," remarked a West German tourist last week, as she contemplated the eerie calm hanging over Lenin Shipyard. "Nobody is misbehaving," said a square-set foreman, puffing on a cigarette. "This is no time for fun. We're all in this together...