Protest Over Closure Of Gdansk Shipyard

Hundreds of laid-off workers hurled bricks and red paint Wednesday at the government party headquarters in Gdansk to protest the closure of the bankrupt shipyard where the Solidarity movement was born.

Chanting “Down with Communists!” the workers hung a pig’s head dipped in red paint on the building and burned an effigy of Prime Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszwicz.

The about 1,000 protesters also set fire to piles of tires in front of the provincial governor’s office, about 900 feet away.

In Warsaw, dozens of protesters blocked the office of Treasury Minister Miroslaw Pietrewicz.