A Good Show of Solidarity in Sieradz

"Solidarity" with a big 'S'. Although it has in recent years been mostly a crap union, times are so hard for unionists that even it has seen a big increase in protest activity.

Today was a huge solidarity demo in the city of Sieradz. As many as 1500 people showed up to protest the sacking of two women, Maria Kubiak and Helena Pilarczyk from their jobs at a care facility. The two were fired the day after they had gone to a labour demonstration in Warsaw in which about 50,000 people took part. (Aug. 29)

The two had just signed up to Solidarity, so the management probably assumed the facility would be unionized soon.

The case is in court and the next hearing in Nov. 12. But everybody was surprised by today's showing of Solidarity. The manager of the care facility has said she would meet with the union to negotiate but said that she "lost trust" in the women and doesn't want them working with patients. She claims that they were giving them bad care. Somebody managed to speak to the patients and found nothing of the sort. They were scandalized at the firing and said good things about the women.