SOLIDARITY UNDERGROUND (1983)
Zalewska, Magda, Solidarity underground: free trade unionism in Poland today (London : Polish Solidarity Campaign, 1983) [Heisler] P4139
This item is a potent reminder of both the potential power of the trade union movement, and its long history of ruthless suppression. Although British trade unions were undergoing their own struggles in 1983, the year of this pamphlet’s printing, they were actively campaigning for the Solidarity movement in Poland. Despite representing over one third of the working population of their country, the union was outlawed under a system of martial law. It would be another seven years before genuinely free elections, and the installation of Solidarity’s leader Lech Walesa as president, occurred in Poland.
