Solidarity call for calm

Press, 31 October 1981, Page 8

Solidarity call for calm

NZPA-Reuter Warsaw

Poland's Solidarity trade union has called for a halt to wildcat strike action on the eve of today’s session of Parliament which will consider outlawing strikes. . A statement issued by Solidarity yesterday and signed by the union’s leader, Lech Walesa, and other members of the union’s national presidium said strikes should be the ultimate weapon and should be used only in “a thoughtful and planned way.” Unco-ordinated strikes threatened the union with break-up and loss of support from society, the statement said. But it' added that "noone can t<=£e away our right

to strike and we shall never permit that." The Government and officially directed media have attacked Solidarity increasingly in the last few days for being unable to control its members’ activities and cited a rash of spreading protest strikes as proof. Parliament is meeting today for the first time since the Communist Party Central Committee called on it to pass a law banning strikes. The law would lead to serious confrontation with Solidarity, which has said it would ignore any ban and has urged parliamentarians to vote against it.

But Parliament can no longer be expected to automatically rubber stamp re-

commendations of the Central Committee, which called for the strike ban when it elected General Wojciech Jaruzelski party leader 12 days ago. General Jaruzelski, as Prime Minister, asked Parliament on April .10 to ban strikes for two months, but it did no more than pass a resolution saying it was “indispensable” that Poland had two months of relative calm.

Industrial unrest continued yesterday in many parts of Poland. In Zyrardow, southwest of Warsaw, public transport workers began an indefinite stoppage in support of textile workers, mostly women, staging a sit-in strike in 16 factories.