Poland should make August 31 a national day off, columnist argues

Poland already recognises August 31 as the Day of Solidarity and Freedom. Krzysztof Adam Kowalczyk argues that the date deserves more than a place on the state calendar: it should become a day off work.

The columnist recalls how a worker, then nearly 38, climbed over the fence of Gdańsk Shipyard 46 years ago to join colleagues beginning a strike. They were defending a dismissed co-worker and demanding that wages retain their real value. They could not have known that the action would help shape Poland’s history for decades.

On August 31, 1980, representatives of the communist government signed an agreement with the Inter-Factory Strike Committee. The reluctant recognition of independent trade unions became the foundation for the Solidarity social movement. Despite the imposition of martial law on December 13, 1981, the movement survived and helped bring about the peaceful overthrow of communism in 1989.

Kowalczyk says the generation that launched the strikes should be honoured while it is still alive. He compares the proposal with Poland’s November 11 Independence Day, which became a paid holiday in 1937, and with the Czech Republic’s November 17 holiday commemorating the Velvet Revolution.

He notes that Poland has 13 additional public holidays, more than the Netherlands and France but fewer than Lithuania and the Czech Republic. He also suggests that August 31 could be viewed as a Polish Labour Day, because the strikers demanded dignity at work.