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The Polish crisis in the early 1980s provoked a great deal of
reaction in the West. Not only governments, but social movements
were also touched by the establishment of the Independent Trade
Union Solidarnosc in the summer of 1980, the proclamation of
martial law in December 1981, and Solidarnosc's underground
activity in the subsequent years. In many countries, campaigns were
set up in order to spread information, raise funds, and provide the
Polish opposition with humanitarian relief and technical
assistance. Labor movements especially stepped into the limelight.
A number of Western European unions were concerned about the new
international tension following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
and the new hard-line policy of the US and saw Solidarnosc as a
political instrument of clerical and neo-conservative cold
warriors. This book analyzes reaction to Solidarnosc in nine
Western European countries and within the international trade union
confederations. It argues that Western solidarity with Solidarnosc
was highly determined by its instrumental value within the national
context. Trade unions openly sided with Solidarnosc when they had
an interest in doing so, namely when Solidarnosc could strengthen
their own program or position. But this book also reveals that
reaction in allegedly reluctant countries was massive, albeit
discreet, pragmatic, and humanitarian, rather than vocal,
emotional, and political.
A study of European co-operation and transatlantic relations in the
1950s as well as on the changes these relations underwent during
the early postwar period. The European Productivity Agency (EPA)
was created in 1953 as a semi-autonomous organization within the
framework of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation
(OEEC) and wound up eight years later, in 1961, when the United
States and Canada joined the OEEC countries and founded the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It
was initially designed as a means to "Americanize" Western Europe
through the transfer of American techniques, know-how and ideas to
the Old Continent, but, as Boel demonstrates, it increasingly
became a framework within which the member countries sought
"European" solutions to their problems. The EPA was the product of
American ideas, actions and money, and embodied the merger of two
of the United States' main foreign policy goals after World War II,
namely increasing productivity and furthering integration among the
countries of Western Europe. The agency was conceived as a major
instrument for the "politics of productivity" which would enable
Western European societies to overcome their social and political
problems resulting from scarcity, particularly in countries such as
France and Italy with strong communist parties. During its
short-lived existence the EPA acted as an operational arm of the
OEEC, accounting on average for over 40 percent of the overall OEEC
expenditures. It implemented a vast array of activities aimed at
improving productivity in industry, commerce, agriculture and
distribution. Among its endeavours were efforts to develop
management education, improve labor-management relations, and
assist underdeveloped areas in the member countries. Many of its
projects met with contrasted reactions and thus highlighted
conflicts between trade unions and employers, differences amongst
the OEEC countries as well as transatlantic squabbles. Bent Boel,
PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Languages and
Intercultural Studies at the University of Aalborg.
The Polish crisis in the early 1980s provoked a great deal of
reaction in the West. Not only governments, but social movements
were also touched by the establishment of the Independent Trade
Union Solidarnosc in the summer of 1980, the proclamation of
martial law in December 1981, and Solidarnosc's underground
activity in the subsequent years. In many countries, campaigns were
set up in order to spread information, raise funds, and provide the
Polish opposition with humanitarian relief and technical
assistance. Labor movements especially stepped into the limelight.
A number of Western European unions were concerned about the new
international tension following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
and the new hard-line policy of the US and saw Solidarnosc as a
political instrument of clerical and neo-conservative cold
warriors. This book analyzes reaction to Solidarnosc in nine
Western European countries and within the international trade union
confederations. It argues that Western solidarity with Solidarnosc
was highly determined by its instrumental value within the national
context. Trade unions openly sided with Solidarnosc when they had
an interest in doing so, namely when Solidarnosc could strengthen
their own program or position. But this book also reveals that
reaction in allegedly reluctant countries was massive, albeit
discreet, pragmatic, and humanitarian, rather than vocal,
emotional, and political.
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