Free Trade Unions of the Coast

Free Trade Unions of the Coast ( _pl. Wolne Związki Zawodowe Wybrzeża, WZZW, also translated as the Committee for Independent Trade Unions for the Coast) were a government-independent trade union in the People's Republic of Poland.

This trade union was founded in Gdańsk on 29 April 1978 by Andrzej Gwiazda, Krzysztof Wyszkowski and Antoni Sokołowski. The choice of the date was not accidental: the founders issued a declaration that "today, on the eve of the May Day, the holiday symbolizing for more than eighty years the struggle for workers' rights, we constitute the Initiating Committee of the Free Trading Unions ("Komitet Założycielski Wolnych Związków Zawodowych")".Jan Kubik, "The Power of Symbols Against the Symbols of Power: The Rise of Solidarity and the Fall of State Socialism in Poland", Penn State Press, 1994, [http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&vid=ISBN0271010843&id=NDLn-G487rAC&pg=PA162&lpg=PA162&dq=WZZ+Poland&vq=WZZ&sig=0Wz3L57kFBSRzehxFyPoix-CJj8 Google Print, p.162] ] . The founders also condemned official, state-subortinated trade unions as a "subortinated instrument for the organized exploitation of all social groups".Matthew J. Ouimet, "The Rise and Fall of the Brezhnev Doctrine in Soviet Foreign Policy", UNC Press, 2003, [http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&vid=ISBN0807854115&id=aFSwrUcuDWsC&pg=PA108&lpg=PA108&dq=Free+Trade+Unions+of+the+Coast&sig=_yYUsKg6U29zeyRXszw38SzsT1Y Google Print, p.108] ]

Free Trade Unions of the Coast were not a national organization and organized workers only from the coastal 'Tricity' area. They were one of several free trade unions founded in Poland in the late 1970s (others were founded in Katowice, Radom and Szczecin). The Free Trade Unions of the Coast were likely the most significant trade union in Poland before the advent of NSZZ Solidarity ("Solidarność").Michael D. Kennedy, "Professionals, Power and Solidarity in Poland: A Critical Sociology of Soviet-Type Society", Cambridge University Press, 1991 [http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&vid=ISBN0521390834&id=p-1R9bbkNQ4C&pg=PA50&lpg=PA50&dq=Free+Trade+Unions+of+the+Coast&sig=os7Q1Opzy97ARiLXFOFwYuZmgwc Google Print, p.50] ]

The idea of forming independent trade unions was first raised by the striking workers during the coastal cities events in 1970. Free Trade Unions of the Coast were a non-governmental organization, independent of the government, defending the citizen's and workers rights to create organizations free from control from the state and working towards restoring democratic controls in Poland. It had its own underground biweekly newspaper (bibuła), "Robotnik Wybrzeża" (Worker of the Coast).Michael Bernhard, Henryk Szlajfer, "From The Polish Underground", Penn State Press, 2004, [http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&vid=ISBN0271025654&id=nUhiPCkawCoC&pg=PA405&lpg=PA405&dq=Free+Trade+Unions+of+the+Coast&sig=CzMr6IlR2B-Q1rZ_vmbDXdM-6wk Google Print, p.405] ]

By the summer of 1980 the Free Trade Unions of the Coast drawing support from ROPCiO and KOR, became the stronghold of the free trade union movement in Poland.Shana Penn, "Solidarity's Secret: The Women Who Defeated Communism in Poland", University of Michigan Press, 2005, [http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&vid=ISBN0472113852&id=fIO1s9Du1cYC&dq=Free+Trade+Unions+of+the+Coast&lpg=PA44&pg=PA45&sig=UqHm83XtRX2xKNuEq6kDcASf9rw] Google Print, p.45] ] Free Trade Unions organized the strike in Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk in August 1980, and were instrumental in the creation of Inter-Enterprise Strike Committee ("Międzyzakładowy Komitet Strajkowy"), whose 21 demands led to the signing of the Gdańsk Agreement and eventually to the creation of the famous NSZZ Solidarity ("Solidarność").

Quotes

:Form the founding declaration of the Free Trade Unions
* “the society will not struggle for the right to democratic government (...) the genuine social organizations and associations may save the country, since the only means to consolidate the interests and will of the citizens with the interests and the power of the country is democratization” [http://www.ipn.gov.pl/eng/eng_news_high_conf_gdansk.html]

References

External links

* [http://www.ipn.gov.pl/eng/eng_news_high_conf_gdansk.html About Scientific Conference “The Free Trade Unions of the Coast (1978 – 1980)” – Gdańsk, October 9-10, 2003]