Labor Unrest Reaches Warsaw With Strike at Tractor Factory : Workers Demand Recognition of Solidarity Union

Poland’s two-week wave of labor unrest spread to the capital today, with workers demanding recognition of the Solidarity trade union staging a partial stoppage at a giant Warsaw tractor factory.

The outlawed union simultaneously called for urgent nationwide stoppages to back striking shipyard workers in Gdansk and deter authorities from using force against them.

Work in three departments of the Ursus tractor factory outside Warsaw halted pending a reply by the management to six demands presented by a strike delegation, workers said.

The three departments employed 6,000 of the factory’s 15,000 workers. A four-man strike committee and 120 supporters had occupied a canteen after a march around the plant, the workers said.

In Gdansk, strikers at the Lenin Shipyard rebuffed official peace offers, repeating demands for recognition of Solidarity, and the management said the yard might have to close.

Reuters correspondent Michal Broniatowski reported from Gdansk that an offer from the authorities, including a promise to free some political prisoners and rehire activist workers, was turned down at a strike rally.

Where Union Was Born

“There is no freedom without Solidarity,” workers shouted in response. The Lenin Shipyard was the birthplace of the free trade union during a 1980 strike wave, and its leader Lech Walesa is with the strikers.

A communique from Solidarity’s 13-member National Executive Commission headed by Walesa said the government is responding to the unrest with threats, force and plans to assume special powers to ban all forms of protest.

It urged nationwide actions to support the Gdansk strikers and deter authorities from storming the shipyard in an action similar to last Thursday’s pre-dawn police attack on striking steelworkers near Krakow.

“The whole country should stage actions of solidarity of various character, including strikes with set time limits,” the communique said.

It called for activation of the union’s “alarm structures” after a wave of detentions and imprisonments of activists.

This appeared to be an order for supporters to go underground for the first time since September, 1986, when the government issued a comprehensive amnesty for political opponents.

‘Ready to Resist’

“We have not lost hope that common sense will prevail among the authorities. But we must be ready to resist the violence,” the communique said.

It ordered collections “to aid the repressed, including monetary collections to benefit the strikers and those who have been sacked.”

Almost all members of Solidarity’s national council except Walesa have been detained since the strike wave began April 25 in the biggest challenge to Poland’s Communist authorities since 1982.

The spread of the unrest to Ursus appeared a new threat to the government, but the effectiveness of the stoppage there was not immediately clear.

Opposition sources said the strike committee’s demands include legalization of Solidarity and concessions to the Gdansk strikers.