Gdansk Shipyard May Get Reprieve From Government
WARSAW — Poland’s Solidarity-led government said Friday it is preparing to cancel a decision by the previous Communist regime to shut the Gdansk shipyard, where the free trade union was born 10 years ago.
Spokeswoman Malgorzata Niezabitowska said the government wants to turn the state-owned Lenin shipyard--Poland’s biggest--into a joint-stock company and offer shares to its 10,000 employees and foreign investors.
“This decision is economically motivated because one should not close shipyards when there is a big world demand for ships,” Niezabitowska told a weekly news conference.
The yard has been in liquidation since Oct. 31, 1988.
The shutdown, ordered by Poland’s last Communist prime minister, Mieczyslaw Rakowski, was widely interpreted as a political vendetta against Solidarity.
Rakowski handed power over to Solidarity Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki last year after Solidarity crushed the Communists in parliamentary elections.
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