Throughout the history of Poland, a number of strikes and labour disputes have occurred.
A labour strike is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. This can include wildcat strikes, which are done without union authorisation, and slowdown strikes, where workers reduce their productivity while still carrying out minimal working duties. It is usually a response to employee grievances, such as low pay or poor working conditions. Strikes can also occur to demonstrate solidarity with workers in other workplaces or pressure governments to change policies.
Lesser Poland, often known by its Polish name Małopolska, is a historical region situated in southern and south-eastern Poland. Its capital and largest city is Kraków. Throughout centuries, Lesser Poland developed a separate culture featuring diverse architecture, folk costumes, dances, cuisine, traditions and a rare Lesser Polish dialect. The region is rich in historical landmarks, monuments, castles, natural scenery and UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Solidarity, full name Independent Self-Governing Trade Union "Solidarity", is a Polish trade union founded in August 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland. Subsequently, it was the first independent trade union in a Warsaw Pact country to be recognised by the state.
Silesian Voivodeship is a voivodeship, or province, in southern Poland centered on the historic region known as Upper Silesia, with Katowice serving as its capital.
Bielsko-Biała is a city in southern Poland, with a population of approximately 166,765 as of December 2022, making it the 22nd largest city in Poland, and an area of 124.51 km2 (48.07 sq mi). It is the core of the broader metropolitan area with around 335,000 inhabitants. It serves as the seat of the Bielsko County, Euroregion Beskydy, Roman Catholic Diocese of Bielsko–Żywiec and the Evangelical Church Diocese of Cieszyn.
Piotrków Trybunalski, often simplified to Piotrków, is a city in central Poland with 71,252 inhabitants (2021). It is the capital of Piotrków County and the second-largest city in the Łódź Voivodeship.
The following is a timeline of labor history, organizing & conflicts, from the early 1600s to present.
The German Socialist Labour Party of Poland was a political party organizing German Social Democrats in interbellum Poland.
The 1988 Polish strikes were a massive wave of workers' strikes which broke out from 21 April 1988 in the Polish People's Republic.
The 1982 demonstrations in Poland refers to anti-government street demonstrations organized by underground Solidarity to commemorate the second anniversary of the Gdańsk Agreement. The bloodiest protest occurred in southwestern Poland, in the town of Lubin, on 31 August 1982. The Lubin demonstration resulted in three protesters killed by Communist services, and an unknown number of wounded. On the same day, rallies and demonstrations took place in several cities across the country. According to Solidarity sources, there were four more victims—in Wrocław, Gdańsk, Nowa Huta, and Toruń. According to official government sources, there were demonstrations in 66 cities.
On February 10, 1971, textile workers in the central Polish city of Łódź began a strike action, in which the majority of participants were women. These events have been largely forgotten because a few weeks earlier, major protests and street fights had taken place in the cities of northern Poland. Nevertheless, the women of Łódź achieved what shipyard workers of the Baltic Sea coast failed to achieve - cancellation of the increase in food prices, which had been introduced by the government of Communist Poland in December 1970. Consequently, it was the only industrial action in pre-1980 Communist Poland that ended as a success.
The 1981 strike at the Piast Coal Mine in Bieruń was the longest underground protest in the postwar history of Polish mining, and the longest strike of the martial law in Poland. It began on December 14, 1981, one day after introduction of the martial law, and ended on December 28, when approximately 1,000 protesting miners emerged from the mine. They spent two weeks underground, including Christmas, and ended the protest after the government guaranteed their safety.
The Upper Silesia 1980 strikes were widespread strikes, which took place mostly in the Upper Silesian mining cities Jastrzębie-Zdrój, Wodzisław Śląski and Ruda Śląska and its surroundings, during late August and early September 1980. They forced the Government of People's Republic of Poland to sign the last of three agreements establishing the Solidarity trade union. Earlier, agreements had been signed in Gdańsk and Szczecin. The Jastrzębie Agreement, signed on September 3, 1980, ended Saturday and Sunday work for miners, a concession that Government leaders later said cut deeply into Poland's export earnings.
In 1981, a number of labour strikes, labour disputes, and other industrial actions occurred.
In 1982, a number of labour strikes, labour disputes, and other industrial actions occurred.
In 1985, a number of labour strikes, labour disputes, and other industrial actions occurred.
In 1989, a number of labour strikes, labour disputes, and other industrial actions occurred.
In 1947, a number of labour strikes, labour disputes, and other industrial actions occurred.
A number of labour strikes, labour disputes, and other industrial actions occurred in 1992.
Since 1989, when the political and economic transformation first took off, the number of strikes has remained quite consistently low, with the exception of two periods: 1992-1993 (resistance to the initial wave of industrial restructuring) and 2007-2008 (post-EU accession economic prosperity period, combined with a massive outward migration to the EU-15, which enhanced the bargaining power of employees).