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| Independent Self-governing Trade Union "Solidarity" | |
| Niezależny Samorządny Związek Zawodowy "Solidarność" | |
| Founded | September 1980 |
|---|---|
| Members | 1,185,000 (2006)[1] |
| Country | Poland |
| Affiliation | ITUC, ETUC, TUAC |
| Key people | Lech Wałęsa, Janusz Śniadek |
| Office location | Gdańsk, Poland |
| Website | www.solidarnosc.org.pl (In English) |
Solidarity (Polish: Solidarność, pronounced [sɔliˈdarnɔɕtɕ] (
listen); full name: Independent Self-governing Trade Union "Solidarity" — Niezależny Samorządny Związek Zawodowy "Solidarność" [ɲezaˈlɛʐnɨ samɔːˈʐɔndnɨ ˈzvjɔ̃zɛk zavɔːˈdɔvɨ sɔliˈdarnɔɕtɕ]) is a Polish trade union federation founded in September 1980 at the Gdańsk Shipyard, and originally led by Lech Wałęsa.
Solidarity was the first non-communist party controlled trade union in a Warsaw Pact country.[citation needed] In the 1980s it constituted a broad anti-bureaucratic social movement. The government attempted to destroy the union during the period of martial law in the early 1980s and several years of political repression, but in the end it was forced to start negotiating with the union. The Round Table Talks between the government and the Solidarity-led opposition led to semi-free elections in 1989. By the end of August a Solidarity-led coalition government was formed and in December 1990 Wałęsa was elected President of Poland. Since then it has become a more traditional trade union.
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Solidarity was founded in Gdansk in September 1980 at the Lenin Shipyards, where Lech Wałęsa and others formed a broad anti-Soviet social movement ranging from people associated with the Catholic Church[2] to members of the anti-Soviet Left. Solidarity advocated non-violence in its members' activities.[3][4] In September 1981 Solidarity's first national congress elected Lech Wałęsa as a president[5] and adopted a republican program, the "Self-governing Republic"[6]. The government attempted to destroy the union with the martial law of 1981 and several years of repression, but in the end it had to start negotiating with the union.
In Poland, the Roundtable Talks between the government and Solidarity-led opposition led to semi-free elections in 1989. By the end of August a Solidarity-led coalition government was formed and in December Tadeusz Mazowiecki was elected Prime Minister. Since 1989 Solidarity has become a more traditional trade union, and had relatively little impact on the political scene of Poland in the early 1990s. A political arm founded in 1996 as Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS) won the parliamentary election in 1997, but lost the following 2001 election. Currently, as a political party Solidarity has little influence on modern Polish politics.
In Solicitudo Rei Socialis, a major document of Catholic Social Teaching, Pope John Paul II identifies the concept of solidarity with the poor and marginalized as a constitutive element of the Gospel and human participation in the common good. The Roman Catholic Church, under the leadership of Pope John Paul II, was a very powerful supporter of the union and was greatly responsible for its success. Lech Wałęsa, who himself publicly displayed Catholic piety, confirmed the Pope's influence, saying: The Holy Father, through his meetings, demonstrated how numerous we were. He told us not to be afraid[7].
In addition, the priest Jerzy Popiełuszko, who regularly gave sermons to the striking workers, was eventually killed by the Communist regime for his association with Solidarity. Polish workers themselves were closely associated with the Church, which can be seen in the photographs taken during strikes in the 1980s. On the walls of several factories, portraits of the Virgin Mary or John Paul II were visible.
The survival of Solidarity was an unprecedented event not only in Poland, a satellite state of the USSR ruled (in practice) by a one-party Communist regime, but the whole of the Eastern bloc. It meant a break in the hard-line stance of the communist Polish United Workers' Party, which had bloodily ended a 1970 protest with machine gun fire (killing dozens and injuring over 1,000), and the broader Soviet communist regime in the Eastern Bloc, which had quelled both the 1956 Hungarian Uprising and the 1968 Prague Spring with Soviet-led invasions.
Solidarity's influence led to the intensification and spread of anti-communist ideals and movements throughout the countries of the Eastern Bloc, weakening their communist governments. The 4 June 1989 elections in Poland where anti-communist candidates won a striking victory sparked off a succession of peaceful anti-communist revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe[2] known as the Revolutions of 1989 (Jesień Ludów). Solidarity's example was repeated in various ways by opposition groups throughout the Eastern Bloc, eventually leading to the Eastern Bloc's effective dismantling, and contributing to the collapse of the Soviet Union, in the early 1990s.
In late 2008, several democratic opposition groups in the Russian Federation formed a Solidarity movement.[8]
Although Leszek Kolakowski's works were officially banned in Poland, underground copies of them influenced the opinions of the Polish intellectual opposition. His 1971 essay Theses on Hope and Hopelessness, which suggested that self-organized social groups could gradually expand the spheres of civil society in a totalitarian state, helped inspire the dissident movements of the 1970s that led to the creation of Solidarity and provided a philosophical underpinning for the movement.
Formed on 31 August 1980,[9] the union's supreme powers were vested in a legislative body, the Convention of Delegates (Zjazd Delegatów). The executive branch was the National Coordinating Commission (Krajowa Komisja Porozumiewawcza), later renamed the National Commission (Komisja Krajowa). The Union had a regional structure, comprising 38 regions (region) and two districts (okręg). During the communist era the 38 regional delegates were arrested and jailed when martial law came into effect 1983 under General Wojciech Jaruzelski. After a one year prison term the high-ranking members of the union were offered one way trips to any country accepting them (including Canada, the United States, and nations in the Middle East).
Solidarity was organized as an industrial union, or more specifically according to the One Big Union principle, along the lines of the Industrial Workers of the World and the Spanish Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (workers in every trade were organized by region, rather than by craft).[10]
Currently, Solidarity has more than 1.1 million members. National Commission of Independent Self-Governing Trade Union is located in Gdańsk and is composed of Delegates from Regional General Congresses.
Solidarity is divided into 37 regions, and the territorial structure to a large degree reflects the shape of Polish voivodeships, established in 1975 and annulled in 1998 (see: Administrative division of People's Republic of Poland). The regions are:
The network of Solidarity branches of the key factories of Poland was created on 14 April 1981 in Gdansk. It was made of representatives of seventeen factories; each stood for the most important factory of every voivodeship of the pre-1975 Poland (see: Administrative division of People's Republic of Poland). However, there were two exceptions. There was no representative of the Koszalin Voivodeship, and the Katowice Voivodeship was represented by two factories:
| Voivodeship | Represented by |
|---|---|
| Gdansk | Vladimir Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk |
| Szczecin | Szczecin Shipyard |
| Poznan | H. Cegielski - Poznan S.A. |
| Bydgoszcz | Rail Vehicles Repair Shop in Bydgoszcz |
| Zielona Gora | Rolling Stock and Steel Works Zastal in Zielona Gora |
| Katowice | Wujek Coal Mine in Katowice and the Spare Parts Factory Zgoda in Swietochlowice, |
| Krakow | Vladimir Lenin Steelworks in Nowa Huta |
| Wroclaw | Rail Carriage Factory Pafawag in Wroclaw |
| Rzeszow | Factory of Communication Equipment WSK in Rzeszow |
| Bialystok | Cotton Works Fasty in Bialystok |
| Kielce | Ball Bearings Factory Iskra in Kielce |
| Olsztyn | Tire Company Stomil in Olsztyn |
| Lublin | Factory of Communication Equipment PZL in Swidnik |
| Lodz | Julian Marchlewski Cotton Works in Lodz |
| Warsaw | Ursus Factory in Warsaw |
| Opole | Malapanew Steelworks in Ozimek |
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Solidarity is the integration, and degree and type of integration, shown by a society or group with people and their neighbours.[1] It refers to the ties in a society - social relations - that bind people to one another. The term is generally employed in sociology and the other social sciences.
What forms the basis of solidarity varies between societies. In simple societies it may be mainly based around kinship and shared values. In more complex societies there are various theories as to what contributes to a sense of social solidarity.[1]
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`Asabiyyah refers to social solidarity with an emphasis on unity, group consciousness, and social cohesion, originally in a context of "tribalism" and "clanism", but sometimes used for modern nationalism as well. Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah described it as the fundamental bond of human society and the basic motive force of history. `Asabiyyah is neither necessarily nomadic nor based on blood relations. In the modern period, the term is generally analogous to solidarity.[2][3]
Ibn Khaldun argues, effectively, that each dynasty has within itself the seeds of its own downfall. He explains that ruling houses tend to emerge on the peripheries of great empires and use the unity presented by those areas to their advantage in order to bring about a change in leadership. As the new rulers establish themselves at the center of their empire, they become increasingly lax and more concerned with maintaining their lifestyles. Thus, a new dynasty can emerge at the periphery of their control and effect a change in leadership, beginning the cycle anew.[2]
It can be compared to Émile Durkheim's mechanical solidarity as opposed to the organic solidarity which he suggests can be found in modern societies.[3]
According to Émile Durkheim, the types of social solidarity correlate with types of society. Durkheim introduced the terms "mechanical" and "organic solidarity" as part of his theory of the development of societies in The Division of Labour in Society (1893). In a society exhibiting mechanical solidarity, its cohesion and integration comes from the homogeneity of individuals—people feel connected through similar work, educational and religious training, and lifestyle. Mechanical solidarity normally operates in "traditional" and small scale societies.[4] In simpler societies (e.g., tribal), solidarity is usually based on kinship ties of familial networks. Organic solidarity comes from the interdependence that arises from specialization of work and the complementarities between people—a development which occurs in "modern" and "industrial" societies.[4] Definition: it is social cohesion based upon the dependence individuals have on each other in more advanced societies. Although individuals perform different tasks and often have different values and interest, the order and very solidarity of society depends on their reliance on each other to perform their specified tasks. Organic here is referring to the interdependence of the component parts. Thus, social solidarity is maintained in more complex societies through the interdependence of its component parts (e.g., farmers produce the food to feed the factory workers who produce the tractors that allow the farmer to produce the food).
The two types of solidarity can be distinguished by morphological and demographic features, type of norms in existence, and the intensity and content of the conscience collective.[4]
| Feature | Mechanical solidarity | Organic solidarity |
|---|---|---|
| Morphological (structural) basis | Based on resemblances (predominant in less advanced societies) Segmental type (first clan-based, later territorial) Little interdependence (social bonds relatively weak) Relatively low volume of population Relatively low material and moral density | Based on division of labour (predominately in more advanced societies) Organized type (fusion of markets and growth of cities) Much interdependency (social bonds relatively strong) Relatively high volume of population Relatively high material and moral density |
| Types of norms (typified by law) | Rules with repressive sanctions Prevalence of penal law | Rules with restitutive sanctions Prevalence of cooperative law (civil, commercial, procedural, administrative and constitutional law) |
| Formal features of conscience collective | High volume High intensity High determinateness Collective authority absolute | Low volume Low intensity Low determinateness More room for individual initiative and reflection |
| Content of conscience collective | Highly religious Transcendental (superior to human interests and beyond discussion) Attaching supreme value to society and interests of society as a whole Concrete and specific | Increasingly secular Human-orientated (concerned with human interests and open to discussion) Attaching supreme value to individual dignity, equality of opportunity, work ethic and social justice Abstract and general |
"...if I have properly understood gesellschaft is supposed to be characterised by a progressive development of individualism, the dispersive effects of which can only be prevented for a time, and by artificial means by the action of the state, it is essentially a mechanical aggregate."
International solidarity is “not an act of charity but an act of unity between allies fighting on different terrains toward the same objectives.” - Samora Machel
“Unlike solidarity, which is horizontal and takes place between equals, charity is top-down, humiliating those who receive it and never challenging the implicit power relations.”[7] - Eduardo Galeano
"Solidarity is not a matter of altruism. Solidarity comes from the inability to tolerate the affront to our own integrity of passive or active collaboration in the oppression of others, and from the deep recognition of our most expansive self-interest. From the recognition that, like it or not, our liberation is bound up with that of every other being on the planet, and that politically, spiritually, in our heart of hearts we know anything else is unaffordable."[8] - Aurora Levins Morales
"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another's danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security." John Donne, Meditation XVII
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Solidarity
Solidarity can refer to:
   | Advice for East German propagandists on how to deal with the Solidarity movement - Advice for GDR Agitators on Poland |
| | The Birth of Solidarity on BBC - BBC News | Communism | Poland |
| | The rise of Solidarnosc - International Socialism: The rise of Solidarnosc |
| | on Vatican website - Sollicitudo rei socialis - Table of Contents - IntraText SC |
| | Force More Powerful - PBS | About This Site . Retired Site |
| | Solidarity, Freedom and Economical Crisis in Poland, 1980-81 - Easy Sudoku Style Game #3475 - Math |
| | AFL-CIO - www.aflcio.org - America's Union Movement |
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