Riding History to Death by Karol Modzelewski Edited and translated by Frank L. Vigoda Introduction by Irena Grudzińska Gross

Author:Karol Modzelewski Edited and translated by Frank L. Vigoda Introduction by Irena Grudzińska Gross
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: undefined
Published: 2012-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

I was back in Wrocław on September 1, 1980, in the morning when the first trams were about to run. That night the envoys to the Inter-Factory Striking Committee in Gdańsk had returned to Wrocław, bringing back the text of the accord that included the provision that independent self-governing trade unions could be established countrywide and not just on the coast. Wrocław declared the end of the strike, and the Inter-Factory Striking Committee became the Inter-Factory Founding Committee (MKZ) of the Independent Self-Governing Trade Union (NSZZ).

Dissuaded by Geremek and Mazowiecki, I did not try to join the advisors of the emerging trade union movement. But I was a member of the Union of Polish Teachers (ZNP), and nobody barred me from participating in its meetings and exercising my voting rights. At the general assembly of ZNP members from all units of the Wrocław PAN, the ZNP council was disbanded. Almost everyone present left the ZNP and joined Solidarity. They elected a Founding Committee representing the Wrocław PAN units, and I became its vice chairman and delegate to the MKZ. There was no doubt that our decision meant joining that structure; nobody thought of creating a separate union for employees in the sciences, technology, and education, whereas our Warsaw colleagues were leaning toward such a solution. It was clear that we had to be together with workers. This was Wrocław, and not Warsaw.

The MKZ was no longer in the bus depot but in an apartment assigned by the Wrocław municipality at Red Square (today Solidarity Square). I was well received there and was immediately assigned to the commission that was charged with preparing a draft of the bylaws for the Union. It was obvious that it was to be a countrywide organization. I worked together with Kazimierz Pieprz of the Wrocław Machinery Trade Center, Krzysztof Turkowski of the Ossolineum National Institute, and three lawyers who provided legal expertise (Joanna Ładomirska, Lech Adamczyk, and Tadeusz Kaszubski). We worked on the procedures for declaring strikes. My other personal contribution to the Wrocław project was naming the Union bodies, later included in the Solidarity bylaws. I had been impressed by the [1936] Spanish Workers’ Commissions, and following their pattern I suggested calling the governing bodies of the union at the factory level Factory Commissions (Komisje Zakładowe, KZ), those at the regional level Regional Commissions (Komisje Regionalne), and the one at the countrywide level, Country Commission (Komisja Krajowa, KK). These names found approval, perhaps because the more standard term “governing board” (zarząd) had bad connotations for the thousands of union activists. Why would anyone govern us? We govern ourselves here!

I think our draft was ready on September 12, and we took it to Gdańsk. But the Gdańsk MKZ already had their own bylaws project. This would not be a reason for concern; we expected that there would be many projects that would lead to the emergence of one common set of bylaws through further discussion. But alas the Gdańsk project had the name “Independent Self-Governing

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