Gdansk strikers in showdown

Press, 4 May 1988, Page 11

Gdansk strikers in showdown

NZPA-Reuter Gdansk Strikers occupying Gdansk’s Lenin shipyard have plunged Poland into a new showdown between the Communist Government and the outlawed Solidarity union. The strike began on Monday after Solidarity’s leader, Lech Walesa, called for action to back a week-old stoppage at the giant Lenin steel mill near Krakow, southern Poland. Authorities have declared both strikes illegal and threatened participants with up to three years jail. On Monday the police rounded up at least seven members of Solidarity’s 13-man National Executive Commission. Poland has now had five main strikes in a week, prompting the Polish leader, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, to declare on Sunday the Government would not permit a return to the “anarchy and uproar” of the Solidarity era. The scene at the Lenin shipyard, where between 2000 and 3000 workers were locked inside overnight, was reminiscent of August, 1980, when Solidarity was born during a massive strike wave that toppled the Communist leader, Edward Gierek.

Banners, flags, flowers and pictures of the Pope and the Virgin Mary once again hung from the main gate — nearly six years after General Jaruzelski imposed martial law to crush the free trade union.

Outside the gate, candles lit by wellwishers flickered round a giant monument erected under Solidarity to strikers shot by security forces in an earlier upheaval in 1970. The shipyard’s director, Czeslaw Tolwinski, met the 15-member strike committee after dark, but only to tell them he would talk only with the official Communist-led trade unions. Striking workers booed him and shouted “Solidarity, Solidarity.” Later, police loudspeakers audible Ikm away shattered the night, saying a prosecutor had declared the stoppage illegal and strikers could be sacked and jailed. Solidarity’s depleted leadership issued a declaration demanding legalisation of the union, real political reforms, trade union pluralism and a national accord to extricate Poland from a prolonged crisis. General Jaruzelski has repeatedly refused to consider bringing Solidarity into partnership with the Government or discussing with it any national accord. The Government says the strikers’ pay demands are beyond the country’s, means. It has not commented on the shipyard workers’ demands for Solidarity’s reinstatement. In an apparent conciliation attempt, the management of the Krakow steelworks offered the Krakow strikers renewed talks on Monday for the first time since ending them a week ago. The strikers set several conditions in reply.