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Honoring Lech Walesa in Washington By Msgr. George G. Higgins The Yardstick October 9, 2000  Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa was honored Sept. 15 at a gala dinner in Washington. The occasion was the 20th anniversary of the Gdansk Agreement, which prepared the way for the Solidarity movement's legalization.  I vividly recall watching this historic event on television. A year later, I had the privilege of addressing the first Solidarity Congress in Gdansk. In December that year, however, Solidarity was crushed by the Polish communist militia; Walesa, among other leaders of the movement, was arrested and held in prison for many months.  By the time of the 10th anniversary of the Gdansk Agreement, Walesa had been released from prison, and the communist regime in Poland was on its last legs. I accompanied the U.S. labor delegation to Gdansk for the 10th-anniversary celebration and was privileged to bless the memorial plaque dedicated by the late AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland in honor of the Polish workers killed by the communist militia during an earlier strike on the Baltic Coast in the '70s.  Adrian Karatnycky, president of Freedom House in New York, was present in Gdansk on that occasion as an adviser to Kirkland. Writing in the Washington Times on the day of the 20th anniversary dinner in Washington, Karatnycky, a noted expert on East European politics and economics, aptly described Walesa as "an epochal figure, who shaped a country's struggle for sovereignty and freedom, played a central role in the collapse of communism and established the contours of his country's new vibrant democracy and free-market economy."  Being honored at the 20th anniversary dinner in Washington must have been bittersweet for Walesa, for in one sense time has passed him by. Solidarity's past and present leaders are running poorly in the campaign for Poland's presidency, and Walesa himself is registering only 3 percent support in public opinion samplings. In the short run, history has been less than kind to Walesa. In the long run, however, I am sure history will second Karatnycky's tribute.  During Solidarity's heyday some of its most vocal U.S. supporters in conservative circles were operating on a double standard. They were strongly in favor of free trade unions in communist Poland, and rightly so. But they were silent -- and in some cases worse than silent -- on the right of American workers to organize into unions of their own choice.  I recall, for example, that in one and the same issue a leading conservative weekly featured an editorial strongly supporting Solidarity and then, at the back of the magazine, featured an advertisement for a notoriously anti-union management consultant firm.  In light of this, it was a happy coincidence that just a few days before Walesa was honored in Washington, Human Rights Watch published a detailed and documented report titled "Fair Advantage: Worker's Freedom of Association in the United States Under International Human Rights Standards." It is this report's thesis that a culture of impunity has taken shape in U.S. labor law and practice. The report finds that each year thousands of workers are fired or suffer other reprisals when they seek to exercise the right of association in the United States. Millions more are deliberately excluded from laws to protect workers' organizing and bargaining rights. The report calls for stronger laws and more effective enforcement to ensure that the right to freedom of association is fully protected for workers in the United States.  It will be interesting to see what the conservative pro-Solidarity press does with this new report. At this writing, unfortunately, it has given the report the silent treatment. It would appear that the old double standard is still at work.    Papal Social Encyclicals   Other Catholic Social Teachings General Articles of Interest  Catholic Worker Connection Msgr. George Higgins  Home Page E-Mail: Fr. Sinclair Oubre