A former shipyard worker whose 1980 firing triggered the labor protest that spawned Poland's Solidarity movement was awarded $23,000 on Tuesday for her imprisonment more than two decades ago
Published:
24 February 2005 y., Thursday
A former shipyard worker whose 1980 firing triggered the labor protest that spawned Poland's Solidarity movement was awarded $23,000 on Tuesday for her imprisonment more than two decades ago.
A regional court in the central Poland city of Torun ruled Tuesday that Anna Walentynowicz's 1983 incarceration ruined her health and caused her substantial financial losses.
"I'm very pleased," Walentynowicz, who did not attend the court proceedings, said by telephone from her home in the city of Gdansk.
Walentynowicz, 75, said she has often found it difficult to buy expensive medicine that she requires with her regular pension of $433 a month.
Walentynowicz, an activist in the illegal free-union movement, was dismissed from her job as a crane operator at Gdansk's Lenin shipyard in August 1980 - prompting employees to stop work in protest.
Lech Walesa, then a union organizer who also had been dismissed, took charge of the strike. In two dramatic weeks, the workers won guarantees for the first independent union in the Soviet bloc and broad social political concessions.
Šaltinis:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.
The most popular articles
EU plans will allow international air passenger data to be used under strict conditions in the fight against terrorism and serious crime.
more »
Experts are trying to find ways to save the unique Sedlec ossuary - a church decorated with human skulls and bones.
more »
The EU and its Member States must act to ensure that pension schemes can sustainably deliver an adequate income to the EU's growing number of retired people, despite the economic crisis, says Parliament's Employment Committee in a resolution voted on Tuesday.
more »
Chinese factories increase their output of replicas of the Windsor royal engagment ring as world-wide demand for the sparkle remains high.
more »
The euro changeover in Estonia is in its final stage.
more »
Europe's flora and fauna are now better protected than at any time in the history of the European Union. Natura 2000, Europe's network of protected natural areas, has been expanded by nearly 27 000 square kilometres.
more »
Getting more people involved in volunteering is the key aim of the 2011 European Year of Volunteering.
more »
Dear Fellow People of Lithuania,I send my best wishes to you on this New Year's Eve.
more »
Some residents in Jakarta are trading in their gas guzzling cars and motorcycles for bicycles.
more »
As a winter storm is heading for the Northeast Coast of the United States, drivers are not the only travelers being hit by the storm.
more »