Workers fear Gdansk shipyard at risk

Polish workers at the Gdansk shipyard where the pro-democracy Solidarity movement was born fear bankruptcy could result from any delay by the country's new government in privatising the yard.

Hundreds of shipyard employees rallied this week to support the swift sale of the yard to a Ukrainian investor, which moved to buy the facility after the EU demanded that it streamline operations or repay some €1.3 billion in aid from Brussels.

Some workers held banners saying "We want a modern yard and a European level of wages", while others burned tyres and set off firecrackers outside management offices at the Baltic port.

One of Ukraine's biggest financial groups, Industrial Union of Donbass, agreed a deal worth about €275 million this month to buy an 83 per cent stake in the shipyard. Officials said it intended to repay the EU aid and keep all three of Gdansk's slipways open.

But after the government of prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski fell in the October 21st general election, many staff at the yard fear the new government led by the liberal Civic Platform will delay the sale to investigate whether it was carried out fairly.

Civic Platform supports economic reform and privatisation of state enterprises, but has raised doubts about the transparency of some of the last government's dealings.

"Privatisation of the yard is necessary and under no circumstances will it be jeopardised," said Civic Platform deputy Tadeusz Aziewicz, without giving a timeframe for the deal to go ahead.

Officials from the Gdansk shipyard and a Polish arm of Industrial Union of Donbass told shipping media this week that the handover of the yard had not yet taken place, and that the deal could still be rejected by Poland's industrial development agency.

Many Poles still care deeply for the fate of the shipyard, where Lech Walesa and colleagues founded Solidarity in 1980, as the first free trade union in the communist bloc.

Mr Walesa has criticised the planned sale of the yard, which thrived during communism but has endured falling orders and dwindling investment under capitalism.