Strike

Agnieszka Kowalska is honored as 'activist of the Year' at the Lenin Shipyard for being a top quota worker. She receives a television prize and delivers a speech about coming to the shipyard in 1950 with nothing, and now she has a profession and a home. The moment marks a high point in her early recognition and public standing.

Following the ceremony, fellow women workers confront her for pushing so hard and for seeming to ignore the party quotas. The confrontation exposes the strain between individual ambition and collective control within the shipyard. It foreshadows the friction that will define her career.

In a meeting of Party and union members, Agnieszka argues for a longer lunch break, but officials refuse to budge. Sobecki confronts her in a tense exchange, illustrating how authorities police even small worker concessions. To help her colleagues, she organizes bringing soup so workers can eat without rushing.

She decides to take a pay cut and switch jobs with Mateusz, the crane operator. She learns to read and write, passes the exam, and becomes the first female crane operator at the shipyard. She also grows closer to her neighbor Kazimierz, who supports her ambitions.

A few months after qualifying, Agnieszka is diagnosed with kidney cancer. She is distraught about what will happen to her young son Krystian. Kazimierz agrees to raise Krystian as his own son and soon marries Agnieszka.

During their honeymoon, Kazimierz dies suddenly of a heart attack, leaving Agnieszka a widow. After this, a Party official pushes to push workers harder despite exhaustion, and Agnieszka refuses. The mounting tension culminates in a deadly fire at the shipyard, where she does what she can to help pull colleagues from the blaze.

The shipyard's overwork culture leads to an accidental fire in which 21 workers are killed. Agnieszka attempts to rescue colleagues with her crane, underscoring the human cost of the relentless push for speed. The tragedy exposes the flaws in the system that kept pushing workers beyond safe limits.

Following the disaster, the shipyard director withholds pensions for surviving dependents while the union forges timecards to hide the extreme overtime. They offer Agnieszka overtime payments if she ceases speaking about the forged timecards. She renounces Bochnan in anger.

Krystian grows up, has a girlfriend, and is doing well enough to aim for a polytechnic. It is revealed that Sobecki is Krystian’s father, a fact Agnieszka confronts in his office. He agrees to help only if he can meet his son.

Out of desperation, Krystian enlists so that he can eventually go to a polytechnic. This decision reflects the pressures on families during the era and the hope for a more stable future through education or military service.

The 1970 strikes unfold with worker deaths, and Agnieszka is arrested and beaten. She returns home to find Krystian wearing the uniform of those who had just mistreated her. Krystian reveals he knows about his true father, deepening the family conflict.

In 1978, Sobecki's secretary recruits Agnieszka to Robotnik, an underground newspaper. The election of Pope John Paul II energizes workers and heightens shipyard politics. Agnieszka helps write and distribute newsletters to educate workers about conditions.

Shipyard officials place her on lockdown to stop distribution of underground literature and fire her for allegedly stealing her deceased husband’s trumpet. The firing triggers a wave of strikes across Lenin Shipyard and spreads to other workplaces, signaling a broader labor movement.

Strikes spread to other shipyards and transport workers, pressuring authorities to negotiate. Agnieszka gives a speech urging continued solidarity, helping to sustain the momentum for workers’ rights. Archive footage foreshadows the broader changes to come.

The labor actions culminate in the emergence of Solidarity, a nationwide workers’ movement that changes Poland’s political landscape. The events spotlight the power of collective action that began with one woman at the Lenin Shipyard.