Inter-Enterprise Strike Committee

Around 16,000 employees of the shipyard discontinued their work and occupied its premises on the morning of August 14, demanding Walentynowicz's re-employment, the erection of a monument in honor of the victims of the strikes of 1970, and a pay rise of 2000 zlotys, amongst other things.

By the next morning the Inter-Enterprise Strike Committee (Polish shorthand: MKS) had been formed within the gates of the shipyard, intending to unite workers in the Gdańsk-Sopot-Gdynia area, coordinating action and maintaining and order to ensure the safety of the strikers.

Lech Wałęsa, an electrician who had lost his job at the Gdańsk Shipyard in the strikes of 1976 was elected as chair of the MKS, while the remainder of the committee was composed of delegates from other facilities including Bogdan Lis, Andrzej Gwiazda, and others.

These demands were far broader and all-encompassing that the original postulates of the Gdańsk strikers, pushing for free trade unions and the legal right to strike, an end to the repression of independent activists, improvement of health care services, and the increased availability of basic consumer goods and foodstuffs, amongst other things.

After weeks of negotiations with Wałęsa and his MKS, the Communist party first secretary Edward Gierek was forced to accede to all twenty-one of the strikers' demands, signing the Gdańsk Agreement on August 31, which allowed workers the right to strike and organise independent unions.