Warsaw bid to satisfy workers’ demands

Press, 16 August 1980, Page 9

Warsaw bid to satisfy workers’ demands

NZPA-Reuter Warsaw Thousands of striking workers, stayed in 'Poland’s biggest shipyard overnight after rejecting a pay offer by the authorities who are faced with a potentially big crisis from growing labour unrest.

Some of the workers sang Communist revolutionary songs as they settled down in the Lenin Shipyard in the northern port of Gdansk. While their strike committee negotiated ' with the yard management Polish television and radio admitted for : the first time • that strikes were taking place

and confirmed stoppages in Gdansk, Lodz and Warsaw. Announcers appealed for calm.

The strike by 16,000 workers in the Lenin yard recalled stoppages there in December, 1970, that ended in violence and the downfall of the then communist leader Wladyslaw Gomulka. The strikers on Thursday listed several demands, including the erection of a monument to 49 workers killed in 1970.

The management has agreed to put up the monument, promised higher family allowances. and said two

dismissed workers would be taken back. The Dissident Self-defence Committee (K.0.R.) said the strikers rejected an offer of I $4O monthly pay-rise, and also rejected a management request for a two-week return to work while other de-

mands were reviewed. These included the setting up of a free trade union, the abolition of meat price rises, . $68.50 monthly pay-rises and ‘ the broadcasting of the strikers’ grievances. ’ : K.O.R. said it appeared that mention of the Gdansk, Lodz and Warsaw strikes on television was designed to meet the last demand, at least in part.