AWU congratulates Polish trade unionists celebrating struggle for freedom

1 September 2010

The Australian Workers' Union has congratulated Solidarity, the independent Polish trade union which helped to bring down the Iron Curtain, on the 30th anniversary of its creation in the port city of Gdansk.

Thirty years ago, ordinary people challenged an armed dictatorship, and won.

The AWU was a keen supporter of that  historic struggle for freedom, a struggle which eventually changed Poland and the rest of the world.

Union fought for international support for Polish workers

AWU National Secretary, Paul Howes, has written to the Polish union and noted that very early on one of his predecessors, Laurie Short, a great internationalist, fought hard alongside colleagues in the USA and Europe, to ensure unions across the globe understood the important democratic struggle Solidarity was leading.

" There is little doubt that the fight to create an independent, democratic trade union in Poland changed the whole world; brought an end to the Iron Curtain, and an end to the horrors of  Stalinism which blighted the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries which it controlled," Paul Howes wrote.

Standing up for freedom and democracy; sharing trade union values

" The values Solidarnosc stands for are shared by the Australian Workers’ Union. In the 1940s, 1950s, and much later, our union proudly fought thuggish, sometimes violent, anti-democratic elements from the extreme left organised in Australia under the banner of Stalinism."

Congratulating the union on its current celebration of an important milestone the AWU National Secretary said it was important to remember that independent unions can play an important role in standing up for freedom and democratic values.

The Polish struggle for independent unionism can continue to inspire all who seek freedom around the world. Today, there are those who still live under tyranny and are denied human rights; working people can use their power standing together to end oppression, end tyranny.

Fight in Gdansk part of a global effort to restore respect for workers' rights

" We did that in the 40s and 50s here in Australia; we did that in the 1980s backing Solidarity and we must continue to do that in the 21st century," Paul Howes said.

" Laurie Short understood that the fight in Gdansk in the 1980s was part of a global effort by unions who backed freedom and democracy to restore respect for workers’ rights everywhere.

" Thirty years on it gives me great pride to remember our union took such a principled position to back your union across the other side of the world," Paul Howes wrote.