Polish Strikes Bring Economic Review, Curfew

The Communist government today announced a special Parliament session will be held Aug. 31 to review its economic policies and said it will continue measures to stem the worst strikes since the 1981 imposition of martial law.

Government spokesman Jerzy Urban, who announced the date of the Parliament meeting at a news conference today, said the session will consider the entire economic situation and perhaps make adjustments in national price and income policies.

Strikers have demanded higher pay and reinstatement of Solidarity, the outlawed independent trade federation.

Curfew Announced

Authorities earlier announced a curfew tonight on Jastrzebie, the city at the center of strikes that began a week ago and spread to coal mines, factories, ports and transportation facilities employing 100,000 people.

Interior Minister Czeslaw Kiszczak, saying at least 20 illegal strikes have threatened anarchy in the country, announced Monday that law-enforcement forces will secure major industrial facilities and that he had empowered provinces to impose curfews in the Katowice, Szczecin and Gdansk areas.

Urban said there have been 49 detentions by police nationwide in connection with the strikes, most of them “preventive.”

Solidarity leader Lech Walesa today again appealed for talks between authorities and his union.

“Solidarity remains steadfast in its search for dialogue despite the growing social tensions,” he said on a tape brought out of the strikebound Lenin shipyard in Gdansk where he spent the night. “ . . . The just protest of the workers must not be ignored.”

Urban told reporters that talks with Walesa were impossible while strikes were going on.