Alina Pienkowska
| Alina Pienkowska | |
|---|---|
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| Senator | |
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In office 25 November 1991 – May 31, 1993 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born | 12 January 1952 Gdańsk |
| Died | October 17, 2002 (aged 50) Gdańsk |
| Political party | Solidarity |
Alina Pienkowska (born January 12, 1952 in Gdańsk, died October 17, 2002, Gdańsk; her surname is often misspelt as Pieńkowska) was a Polish free trade union activist and a Senator for Gdańsk (1991–1993, Solidarity Parliamentary Club). She was involved in the creation of Solidarity, of which she was a member of its organizing committee.
Pienkowska's father worked in the Lenin Shipyard and had joined in the shipyard workers' protest of December 1970. In 1980 she was a young, widowed mother (of Sebastian) working as the shipyard nurse. She had been one of the founders of the underground Free Trade Unions of the Coast in the 1970s. She wrote health-related articles for the underground journal, The Coastal Worker, mostly related to shipyard safety and rising accident rates. The August 1980 strike started on the 14th over the firing of Anna Walentynowicz. All of the phone lines into the shipyard were cut except to the clinic, and as the nurse, Pienkowska was instrumental in communicating to the outside world about the strike that ultimately spread to the Baltic coast and the giant wave of strikes in Poland. Her first call was to Jacek Kuroń of the Workers' Defence Committee (KOR) in Warsaw. The press described her as a "firebrand", and she herself admitted to being moderated by Kuroń in order to avoid Soviet intervention.
On the third day of the strike, on August 16, 1980, management granted Lenin Shipyard workers their working and pay demands. Lech Wałęsa and others announced the end of the strike. Pienkowska was outraged because of her close connection to the many workers outside the shipyard striking in solidarity with the shipyard workers. She told Wałęsa:
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