The shipyard worker who helped launch independent unionism
“We had been preparing for the strike for seven days, and the day came when it had to begin here in the shipyard.”
Jerzy Borowczak was a young Gdańsk shipyard worker who helped open the way to Poland's independent trade-union movement in 1980. With Bogdan Felski and Ludwik Prądzyński, he launched the strike on 14 August, demanding Anna Walentynowicz's reinstatement, higher wages, and a memorial to the victims of 1970. He continued resisting after martial law, enduring internment and dismissal before returning to the shipyard in 1989.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1977Graduated from the Gdańsk Shipbuilding Technical School
- 1979Worker at Gdańsk Shipyard and collaborator with the Free Trade Unions of the Coast
- 1980Launched the August strike with Bogdan Felski and Ludwik Prądzyński
- 1980–1981Founding member and deputy chair of the Solidarność shipyard committee
- 1981–1982Resisted martial law and was interned at Iława
- 1982–1989Worked for the Świetlik high-altitude work cooperative after dismissal
- 1989–1993Returned to the shipyard and chaired its Solidarność committee
- 2000–2023Member of the Polish Sejm and director of the Gdańsk Solidarity Centre Foundation
Related historical events
The fuse: the first hours of the August 1980 strike
Borowczak called himself no more than the 'zapalnik', the fuse, of the August strike: he lit it, but the achievement belonged to the whole shipyard and to Poland. At a gathering on 10 August 1980, when Anna Walentynowicz's dismissal became known, the KSS KOR activist Bogdan Borusewicz brought together Borowczak, Ludwik Prądzyński, Bogdan Felski and Lech Wałęsa to prepare a strike. By Borowczak's own account, only he and Prądzyński turned up at the main gate at dawn on the 14th, and they went in anyway. On the K-5 hull shop he took leaflets from an unmarked locker and handed them to the first workers, telling them the whole yard was striking that day; a crowd of about thirty set off and swelled as it crossed the yard until, at the assembly hall, the gates were forced open and nearly two thousand people poured out shouting 'hurrah'. Borowczak recorded himself as the first man on the strike-committee list. When a breathless Wałęsa finally arrived around ten o'clock, Borowczak instinctively entered him at number 21; Borowczak then took charge of gate number 2 and at first refused entry even to the Warsaw mediators, including Tadeusz Mazowiecki and Bronisław Geremek.