Anti-social packages
The unions that defeated communism are now hobbling foreign investors
GONE are the days when Gdansk was Europe's hotbed of trade-union agitation. Yet even today this Polish port still suffers the odd rumble of discontent. In scenes reminiscent of the famed 1980 sit-ins at the Lenin shipyard that gave birth to Solidarity, Eastern Europe's first independent trade union, several hundred workers at nearby Stocznia Gdynia, Europe's sixth-largest shipbuilder, recently went on strike over wages and safety gear. Declaring the strike illegal, Gdynia's management sacked 120 of the protesters and said it would not tolerate further “lawlessness”.
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Anti-social packages”
From the March 23rd 2002 edition
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