Anna Walentynowicz (Polish pronunciation: [ˈanna valɛntɨˈnɔvʲit͡ʂ]; née Lubczyk; 15 August 1929 – 10 April 2010) was a Polish trade unionist and co-founder of Solidarity, the first recognised independent trade union in the Eastern Bloc. Her firing from her job at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk in August 1980 was the event that ignited the strike at the shipyard, set off a wave of strikes across Poland, and quickly paralyzed the Baltic coast. The Interfactory Strike Committee (MKS) based in the Gdańsk shipyard eventually transformed itself into Solidarity; by September, more than one million workers were on strike in support of the 21 demands of MKS, making it the largest strike ever.

Walentynowicz's arrest became an organizing slogan (Bring Anna Walentynowicz Back to Work!) in the early days of the Gdańsk strike. She is referred to by some as the "mother of independent Poland." She was among the dignitaries killed in the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash near Smolensk in Russia, which also claimed the lives of Lech Kaczyński, the President of Poland and his wife, and the senior commanders of the Polish Armed Forces.

In 2006, she was awarded Poland's highest honour, the Order of the White Eagle. In 2020, Time magazine included her on the list of 100 Women of the Year who influenced the world over the last 100 years.

Walentynowicz was born in 1929 in the village of Sinne, Poland (today Sadove, Ukraine) in Rivne oblast, as Anna Lubczyk, to a family of Ukrainian Shtundists. During the Second World War at the age of ten she began to work as a maid. Later, after the war, she migrated into Poland. Walentynowicz began working in the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland in 1950, first as a welder, later as a crane operator. Recognized as a "Hero of Socialist Labor" or Stakhanovite for her hard work, Walentynowicz became disillusioned with the communist system in Poland, especially after the bloody events in December 1970 on the Baltic Coast. While she was an activist and a member of a socialist youth organization, she was never formally a member of the communist party. Anna was a devout Catholic, who believed in social justice and standing up against oppression, and who became deeply moved in her later years by the teachings of Pope John Paul II, with whom she developed a personal relationship. One of the last letters which John Paul II wrote was to Anna Walentynowicz wishing her speedy recovery from a back injury.

Anna began her quest for justice by speaking out publicly when one of her supervisors stole money from the workers' bonus fund to play the lottery. Instead of reprimanding the corrupt supervisor, the system turned on her—she was harassed by secret police. The 'exemplary worker' and 'Hero of Socialist Labor' had become a vocal dissident.

Walentynowicz joined the newly formed WZZ or Free Trade Unions of the Coast in 1978, and in the early 1980s came to symbolize the opposition movement, along with her colleagues from the WZZ, Lech Wałęsa, Andrzej Gwiazda, Bogdan Borusewicz, Alina Pienkowska, Bogdan Lis, the Wyszkowski brothers and Andrzej Kołodziej. As editor of the Polish samizdat (bibuła) Robotnik Wybrzeża (The Coastal Worker), she distributed an underground newsheet at the shipyard; she often challenged the authorities, it was not uncommon for her to openly challenge her superiors.

For participation in the illegal trade union, Walentynowicz was fired by the shipyard on 7 August 1980, 5 months prior to her plan to retire. This management decision enraged the workers, who staged a strike action on 14 August, defending Anna Walentynowicz, and demanding her return. In early coverage of the Gdańsk strike by Western press (which was permitted into the shipyard), Anna Walentynowicz is mentioned earlier than Lech Wałęsa. She also headed the list of the strike committee of the Gdańsk shipyard typed by Lech Wałęsa. On the third day of the strike, 16 August 1980, management granted Lenin Shipyard workers their working and pay demands. Lech Wałęsa and others announced the end of the strike. The women of the shipyard, Anna Waletynowicz and Alina Pienkowska, are credited in most eyewitness accounts for transforming a strike over bread and butter issues into a solidarity strike in solidarity with other striking establishments. Walentynowicz and Pienkowska managed to close the gates of the shipyard and keep some workers inside, but many workers went home, only to return by the next day.^{[citation needed]}

Wałęsa was stopped near the Gate no° 1 as he was leaving, and was persuaded to change his plans and return to the shipyard.