ey brought posters and leaflets, which they promptly put up. They declared 'We Demand the Reinstatement of Anna Walentynowicz and a Cost of Living Rise of 1,000 Zlotys'. Men quickly gathered around to read the signs and leaflets, ignoring the party officials calls to go back to work. A mass meeting formed at one of the gates. Klemens Gniech, the manager, argued and pleaded the workers not to form a strike committee. The meeting was starting to loose steam as some workers began to go back to their jobs. At that moment, a man embittered by the deaths of the strikes of 1970, maddened by being imprisoned over one hundred times, stepped out. This was a man who was still furious over being fired four years earlier from that very shipyard, a man who had a keen understanding of the workers struggles, he jumped up to the bulldozer roof and yelled at Gniech "Remember me? I gave ten years to this shipyard. But you sacked me four years ago!" His name was Lech Walesa. He turned to the men and women below him and shouted that an occupation strike would begin now. He was cheered loudly, and soon they were asking for him to be reinstated also.No one realized what this would set off. By the next day strikes began to spread throughout the 'Triple-City'. The demands were far bigger now, even asking for the right to establish free trade unions. The leaders began to negotiate with Gniech, but what they had not realized was that the whole city basically gone on strike. The strike committee agreed on a 1,500 zloty pay raise, and was ready to return to work. Walesa went outside and announced the news, to his surprise he was jeered. He had misread the mood. Instantaneously he changed his mind and went around the shipyard pleading everyone to continue striking. The strike continued and it spread. One of the biggest developments in the history of Polish strikes and uprisings happened soon after. Intellectuals came in to help out the workers in drafting documents ...
