Anna Walentynowicz (b. 1929 in Równe) is a Polish free trade union activist. Her firing in August 1980 was one of the events that led to the giant wave of strikes in Poland and eventually the creation of Solidarity, of which she became a prominent member in the early 1980s.

Born in 1929 and orphaned during the Second World War, Anna Walentynowicz began working in the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland in 1950, first as a welder, later as a crane operator. Walentynowicz soon became disillusioned with the Polish communist party (PZPR) as she saw that workers were not allowed to organize and their concerns were not addressed. She began her campaign for justice when one of her bosses stole money from the employees and used it to participate in a lottery.

She was a member of the Free Trade Unions of the Coast in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and she also came to symbolize the opposition movement visually by appearing as a stout female worker in many propaganda posters. As editor of the Polish samizdat (bibuła) Robotnik Wybrzeza ('The Coastal Worker'), she brazenly distributed the illegal newspaper in person at the shipyard, often handing it directly to her bosses. For participation in the illegal trade union she was fired from work on 7 August 1980, 5 months before she was due to retire. This management decision enraged the workers, who staged a strike action on 14 August. In the aftermath of the strike, Anna Walentynowicz and Lech Wałęsa were returned to work, the Gdańsk Agreement was signed and soon afterward the Solidarity trade union was formed.

Several years later Anna left Solidarity, criticizing Wałęsa's policies. After the fall of communism in 1989 she still distanced herself from the union and various political parties allied with Solidarity. In 2000 she declined an honorary citizenship of the city of Gdańsk. In 2003 she asked for compensation from the government for her 1980s persecution, eventually receiving part of the sum. In January 2005 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in Washington on behalf of Solidarity.

She also appeared as herself in four movies, the most famous of those being Man of Iron by Andrzej Wajda.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Walentynowicz

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