The Monument to the Shipyard Workers, also known as the Solidarity Monument in Gdansk, Poland, honors the 28 people who died when the shipyard workers strike in 1970 was suppressed by the government. The monument is located near gate 2 of the Gdansk Shipyards, and our bus from the Silver Shadow passed by on our way from the cruise ship to old town Gdansk.
The monument is known as the Solidarity Monument since the organization funded and constructed it in 1980. This date is particularly important because, at the time, Solidarity was an outlawed organization. However, the government allowed the construction of the Monument to the Shipyard Workers because of its symbolic importance to many Polish citizens. During the early 1980s, many of the Gdansk Solidarity shipyard workers, led by Lech Walesa, were repressed or imprisoned. However, by 1989 the Solidarity movement succeeded in getting a freely elected, non-Communist government elected in Poland.