Polish strikers win union rights from Communist Party

Press, 1 September 1980, Page 1

Polish strikers win union rights from Communist Party

NZPA-Reuter

Gdansk

Striking Polish workers won big changes in their country’s Communist system yesterday when the authorities in Warsaw accepted demands for independent trade unions and the right to strike.

; The Gdansk strikers also ’reached agreement . with the Government yesterday on their remaining 19 demands. - • ! . Negotiators from the two, sides. worked through the remaining demands point by point, initialling thern as they went. The negotiations were relayed by loud speakers to delegates and journalists outside. ’• ■ The demands included a revision 'of the censorship laws ' and the release of political prisoners., '. The strike leader, Lech Walesa, and the •? Government’s chief 'negotiator, the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr jMieczeslaw Jagielski) later ? began -work oh ;a. joint’communique. .

ment in the north, about 5000 people thronged round the gates for morning Mass. The Polish State Radio said, the agreements had been welcomed with relief in the. country and that strikers in Szczecen and Swinoujscie had already started loading and unloading ships. The strikers made the agreements acceptable to the authorities in both Warsaw and Moscow by reaffirming that the Communist Party has the leading role in the state. The party comes above the Government in the Communist-'system,' and although’ -the: Government has guaranteed the independence of the new unions, the party might feel justified in taking some action if it/ felt union interests were coming into serious conflict with its own.

' The Central ■- Committee, o' the ruling Communist Party endorsed an agreement: aimed at ending two month?, of. .labour . unrest that has" crippled industry, caused:? a ’ big- Government and Party shakeup andraised fears. of Soviet intervention. :,

(A. brief announcement said the Central Committee had approved reports from Government negotiators at the Baltic ports, of Gdansk and Szczecin, who. had earlier initialled agreement? with strikers to set up the first independent trade unions in the Soviet bloc.

"Before Mr Jagielski arrived at the Lenin shipyard the' headquarters of the 18-day-old strike move-

sion to approve agreements reached- .with the strikers was greeted with some. relief by workers, there were no immediate signs of euphoria. The Soviet press reacted cautiously to the agreement. Observers felt this indicated both a desire to conceal the “bad . example” and scepticism that the crisis was really oyer. The Communist Party’s Pravda failed to announce the Polish agreement, merely 1 reporting that the Polish Party’s central committee was “considering” the workers* demands. The official Soviet Tass news agency carried extracts from an article blaming the strikes in Poland on “weak, leadership.”

The .party’s role sparked, a dispute among strike leaders in Gdansk yesterday, one section feeling that the word “leading*’ in the agreement should be replaced by “guiding”, the term used -in the national', constitution/. Although . ."the ? agreements, to' 'be, * a; victory for the' strikers/ both sides’- had to ' make concession's.’ 7 ... i

Many i>f the striker’s demands still have to be negotiated; Although the Communist Party’s deci-

Strikers complained that this could give the party an added opening to interfere in the activities of the so-called independent unions.

; Some strikers who led the fight to break the power of the Communist Party in Poland said < they were not happy about some points of the. agreement still to be finalised. They were outvoted. .' Mt Jagielski.. conceded independent unions as a body parallel to Govern-ment-sponsored unions.

Mr Walesa acknowledged before a packed J deludes’ hall that some; /strikers were apprehensive about the reference in the. agreements to a “leading” role for the Communist Party rather than the “guiding” role as stipulated in the nation’s constitution.

On the demand for freedom of speech, press and publication and making the mass media available to all churches, the party says censorship can be reviewed but must protect state secrets, act against distribution of matter hostile to the state system and against. pornography. It says the demand to open the media to the Church was not unrealistic and must be discussed. The strikers also demanded reinstatement of workers dismissed during the 1970 and 1976 strikes, freeing of all political prisoners and end to re-

pression for one’s convictions. They wanted (and received) more public information . about the country’s social-economic situation.

Other demands- were for more pay, better food supplies, lower prices •in "hard currency shops,” election of managers on merit (agreed), elimination of party privileges, the rationing of meat, a lower retirement (planned), better social services (agreed), higher travel allowances, and more five day weeks.