Polish Strikes Spread to Solidarity’s Birthplace

Solidarity leaders launched a strike today in the giant Lenin shipyard, birthplace of the independent trade union, joining a wave of strikes across Poland in the worst crisis since the imposition of martial law in December, 1981.

About two hours after the day shift began, 800 workers hung a huge Solidarity banner outside the shipyard’s Gate No. 2 and announced, “We have begun.” Then about 300 marched toward the main gate chanting, “There is no freedom without Solidarity.”

Police Surround Shipyard

Riot police with special battle batons and backed up by tear gas launchers surrounded the Lenin shipyard, where about 7,000 to 8,000 workers had reported on the day shift.

Solidarity leader Lech Walesa was not in the shipyard at the time the strike was called today. He arrived a short time later and declared during a 20-minute rally at the gate, “We must fight for reforms. We must fight for Solidarity. There is no other way.”

‘The only demand is the re-legalization of Solidarity,” local strike leader Alojzy Szablewski said.

Police did not move against the strikers at the shipyard. But late in the day, riot police stormed two strikebound streetcar depots and a bus depot near the city of Szczecin and forcibly evicted strikers, strike organizers said.

“They were throwing them (strikers) into police vans like pigs,” said Romuald Ziolkowski, chairman of the strike committee at the Dabie bus depot.

Within hours of the shipyard strike, thousands of workers in several other plants across Poland joined the strike.

In Poznan, scene of bloody 1956 riots in which scores of workers were killed, several thousand workers struck at the Cgielski ship engine plant, while 1,200 went on strike in the huge Stolowa Wola steel works in the southeast, activist sources said.

At least 500 of the 4,500 employees at the port of Gdansk and 1,000 at a railway equipment parts firm in Szczecin also went on strike, workers said.

Activists Detained

Solidarity sources said police detained scores of activists in Szczecin, Gdansk, Poznan, Warsaw, Torun and Tarnow and in Silesia, where some 40,000 miners are idled at 15 strikebound mines.

Western diplomats said the strike wave was the most serious in Poland since stoppages in 1980 toppled then-Communist Party leader Edward Gierek and gave rise to Solidarity, which was banned in 1982.