Gdansk Shipyard, Cradle of Solidarity, to Be Privatized
Poland’s Solidarity-led government will privatize the Gdansk shipyard where the independent union was born and a host of other enterprises under an ambitious free-market bill presented to Parliament on Thursday.
The Gdansk shipyard was the scene of strikes against the Communist regime in 1980 that led to the creation of Solidarity under Lech Walesa. Strikes in 1988 paved the way for talks that brought Solidarity to power last year.
Finance Minister Leszek Balcerowicz told Parliament that the past three months of harsh economic austerity aimed at taming Poland’s runaway inflation laid the groundwork for a transformation of the economy.
“We want to achieve breakthrough changes in the economic system,” he said. Our program is the first in history to attempt to move from a state monopoly economy to a market economy as it exists in Western countries.”
The privatization package proposes transforming state-owned enterprises into corporations whose shares will be sold by the Treasury to Polish and foreign investors. Workers will be able to buy up to a fifth of their company’s shares on preferential terms.
The most successful companies will be the first to go private. The government also aims eventually to sell off bankrupt companies.
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