Poland’s output slumps 15 p.c.

Press, 14 November 1981, Page 8

Poland’s output slumps 15 p.c.

NZPA-Reuter Warsaw

Polish. Government and union leaders have set a date for talks on political and social peace against a background of new official figures showing a 15 per cent drop in industrial production and growing economic chaos. The country’s longest regional strike ended yesterday when the Solidarity independent trade union agreed to order 150,000 members back to work in western Zielona Gora after a 22-day stoppage which paralysed the area and cost SUSS million a day in lost production.

Bur Solidarity’s leader, Lech Walesa, said there were still some 65 unresolved industrial disputes. Striking coal miners in Sosnowiec were given television time yesterday as a pre-condition for ending their 18-day protest against an incident in which poison gas was thrown at a crowd outside a colliery. During the programme, their local priest-, Father Zdzislaw Wajzner, said the Communist press had manipulated accounts of the gas incident. He said 93 people had received hospital treatment for gas poisoning, while hospital officials put the figure at 69.

An official commentary on television accused “strike

mongers” of ruining Poland by instalments and said the world must now be convinced that Poles were bent on their own destruction. The Communist authorities and Solidarity agreed earlier to meet next Tuesday after talks last week between Church, Government, and union leaders which explored the possibility of forming a national front to pull the country out of its 16-month-old crisis.

But Poland's leading Communist hard-liner, Stefan Olszowski, said in a speech published yesterday that the ruling party would not surrender its leading role and would never agree to a coalition. He also said the Government had no intention of giving Solidarity access to the mass media.

A report by the Government’s economic committee yesterday said the country’s balance of payments situation was becoming increasingly serious and a number of enterprises faced collapse through lack of energy and materials.

Coal production would fall by a further two million tonnes below target to 162 million and industrial production had fallen nearly 15 per cent in October compared with the same period last year. Grain supplies were also down 29 per cent, the report said.