Size: 15x10cm./5.9×3.9inch.
Weight: 20gr./o.7oz.
Pages: 23
Published: 1980
 
Historic Polish document „Statut Niezaleznego Samorządnego Zwiazku Zawodowego Solidarnosc” (Statute of the Independent Self-Governing Trade Union Solidarnosc) printed in Poland in limited 6000 copies in 1980. The statute defines the goals, tasks, organizational structure and the way the Union operates, basing its activities on the basis of Christian ethics and Catholic social science, it carries out activities in the field of defending the dignity, rights and interests of the union members as well as meeting their material, social and cultural needs.
Solidarity (Solidarnosc full name: Independent Self-Governing Trade Union “Solidarity”) was a trade union founded as a result of workers’ protest and established on the basis of an agreement concluded on August 31, 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk between the Inter-Enterprise Strike Committee and the Government Committee.
Subsequently, it was the first independent free trade union in a Warsaw Pact country to be recognised by the state. The union’s membership peaked at 10 million in September 1981, representing one-third of the country’s working-age population. Solidarity’s leader Lech Wałęsa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 and the union is widely recognised as having played a central role in the end of communist rule in Poland.