Polish Workers Protest Loss of Shipyard Jobs
Workers from the failed Gdansk shipyard took to the streets Friday for the third day running, burning tires and shouting anti-government slogans, in a campaign to save their jobs.
Nearly 1,500 protesters gathered outside the provincial governor’s office in the Baltic port city.
Workers blamed the government, dominated by ex-Communists, for failing to rescue the shipyard--cradle of the Solidarity trade union, which led the overthrow of the old regime in 1989.
Solidarity leads a bloc of more than 30 small, right-wing parties that are challenging the 4-year-old rule of the ex-Communist Democratic Left Alliance and the Peasant Party in elections scheduled around September this year.
The Solidarity protest was strongly backed Friday by Poland’s former president, Lech Walesa, who was a founder of the union in 1980, when he worked at the yard as an electrician.
“I am at the workers’ disposal and will do everything they will ask of me to defend the yard,” he said.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
