They forced the Government of People's Republic of Poland to sign the last of three agreements establishing the Solidarity trade union.
The Jastrzębie Agreement, signed on September 3, 1980, ended Saturday and Sunday work for miners, a concession that Government leaders later said cut deeply into Poland's export earnings.
[2] A Strike Committee, led by Wałęsa, was organized and the workers did not leave the shipyard, deciding to stay there for the night.
The center of the protests in Upper Silesia was the Manifest Lipcowy Coal Mine in Jastrzębie-Zdrój, where the strike broke out on August 28.
According to the witnesses, right before going under the ground, someone in the crowd yelled: "Other mines in the area are already striking, what are we waiting for?
[5] The strike in the Manifest Lipcowy mine was directly connected with catastrophic situation of the miners and poor working conditions.
Since all mass-media was firmly controlled by the government, the workers of the Manifest Lipcowy mine turned for help to a local Roman Catholic church.
On August 30, the first Upper Silesian Inter-Enterprise Strike Committee was created, initially with 20 members,[9] based in the Manifest Lipcowy mine.
According to Jarosław Neja, a historian from the Institute of National Remembrance, in late August and early September 1980, 272 Upper Silesian factories went on strike, with around 900 000 employees.
Furthermore, agreements were signed in other striking centers of Upper Silesia and Zagłębie - Fabryka Samochodów Małolitrażowych in Tychy, Katowice Steel Mill in Dąbrowa Górnicza, in Bytom, Siemianowice Śląskie, and Tarnowskie Góry.