1 Introduction: Solidarity, Ideology, Instrumentality and Other Issues 2 Sweden: Focus on Fundamental Trade Union Rights 3 Spain: The Common Experience of Transition and a Military Coup 4 Italy: Diversity within United Solidarity 5 The ICFTU and the WCL: The International Coordination of Solidarity 6 Great Britain: Between Avoiding Cold War and Supporting Free Trade Unionism 7 The FRG: Humanitarian Support without Big Publicity 8 France: Exceptional Solidarity? 9 Denmark: International Solidarity and Trade Union Multilateralism 10 Belgium: the Christian Emphasis 11 Austria: an Ambivalent Attitude of Trade Unions and Political Parties 12 Abbreviations 13 About the Authors 14 Index
Idesbald Goddeeris is an assistant professor at the K.U. Leuven.
This is a very important book about an under-research topic: How
western European support for the Solidarity movement in Poland
influenced that movement and the future of European politics. It is
a must read for students of contemporary international history and
the history of the Cold War.
*O. A. Westad, London School of Economics*
Up to now, no one has systematically and comparatively studied the
efforts made by Western trade unionists for the sake of Solidarity
and the differences between particular unions. This highly
successful book by Idelsbald Goddeeris, who for years has been
studying this question, is based on meticulous source studies
carried out by an international group of outstanding specialists.
The reader is offered a lively and attractively written impression
and contribution to the history of European syndicalism and the
final disintegration of the post-Stalinist regimes, which signified
the end of the Cold War.
*Andrzej Paczkowski, Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of
Political Sciences*
Solidarity was a phenomenon of global significance, its impact felt
wherever in the world people struggle for democracy, social
justice, and civil rights. First and foremost, though, it was a
trade union. The contributors to this excellent volume show that
Solidarity and contemporaneous labor organizations in Western
Europe cannot be understood apart from one another. So too, today's
European Union has roots in the often contradictory interactions
among social movements that receive long-overdue study here.
*Padraic Kenney, Indiana University*
The explosive events of the Polish summer of 1980 aroused powerful
immediate reactions and studied responses by labor strategists and
tacticians as Solidarnosc, the independent Polish labor union
federation, emerged and grew quickly. The task undertaken by editor
Goddeeris and 14 other authors of 11 chapters is formidable, but
they accomplish the mission with both forcefulness and subtlety.
The labor federations of the nine Western European countries
subject to the study receive detailed attention, as do
international organizations such as the World Confederation of
Labor and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. The
authors also flesh out the environments of each organization, for
some federations and unions had more complex constituencies and
international relationships than did others, and all dealt with the
actions and public rhetoric of political parties as well.
Nonetheless, most labor unions outside the Eastern European bloc
came to support Solidarnosc in diverse ways. That Solidarnosc
emerged and survived was due in no small part to the efforts of the
Western European unions, not only financially, materially, and
educationally, but in their successful propagation of the
conviction that workers' rights are basic to democracy, and that
democracy sustains a high quality of material and cultural life for
all. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and
above.
Solidarity with Solidarity is an excellent international inventory
of current national research on Western trade union support for
Solidarnosc, providing scholars with a clear overview while at the
same time qualifying a number of entrenched myths. Above all, it
leaves us with more inspiring questions to answer and connections
to analyze.
*International Review Of Social History*
Throughout the book similarly fascinating examples of national
responses are drawn out. For anyone with an interest in the history
of Solidarity or solidarity movements more generally, this is a
highly recommended book, bringing to light new and important
archival material.
*European Review Of History*
This book is, quite simply, an extraordinary contribution to
historical scholarship, not only of twentieth-century Poland, but
indeed of modern Europe tout court. Its editor, the Belgian
historian Idesbald Goddeeris—a well-established scholar of
East–West transnationalism in Europe—has performed a great service
in designing a volume that brings together 14 contributors
crosscutting nine different national historiographies as well as
the scholarship on trade-union internationalism.
*Journal of Contemporary History*
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