During the summer of 1980 there were further disturbances among the shipyard workers. Walesa was helped into a protest meeting and seized the leadership by proposing that the workers occupy the shipyards. Walesa was thereafter seen as leader of the wave of strikes which soon covered large parts of the country. The authorities were finally forced to capitulate and negotiate with Walesa. The result of these negotiations was the Gdansk agreement of 31 August 1980 which gave the workers the right to strike and to organize their own independent Union, though there were frequent disagreements with the authorities as to its real status.
Walesa's activities were supported by the Catholic Church; in January 1981 he was received by the Pope in Rome.
In February 1981 General Jaruzelski became Prime Minister and the relationship between Solidarity and the authorities worsened in the months that followed. Martial Law was declared in December 1981, and the leadership of Solidarity, among them Walesa, was arrested. Walesa was interned for almost a year. He was released in November 1982 and has since been reinstated at the Lenin shipyards in Gdansk.