By early 1981, after the communist government raised food and fuel prices and lowered working wages, solidarity had a membership of about 10 million people. This is when my mom became involved with the trade union. Through the union strikes began bringing entire industries to a halt. State run companies were losing money, and they were deeply in debt to the West's to boot. Desperate the authorities tried to strike a deal with the unions. The agreement at the end of the day was to allow the trade unions to exist in exchange for fewer strikes. But this was just a ruse in preparation for martial law to take down the first independent trade union of the Warsaw Pact.