5 More Polish Strikes End, 2 Under Pressure by Police

Five more strikes ended in Poland on Wednesday as tension eased in the current wave of labor unrest and the government continued its show of force to halt other walkouts.

Two of the strikes, one in a coal mine and another in a tram depot, came to a close when police confronted strikers. In three other coal mines, walkouts led by small groups of workers ended voluntarily after appeals by management.

But at the same time, about 1,000 workers at the Nowa Huta steel works near Krakow laid down their tools Wednesday afternoon.

The last of the unaffected facilities at the port of Gdansk also went on strike, shutting down the port entirely. The country’s second-largest port, at Szczecin, is also struck, leaving Poland’s port facilities paralyzed and causing mounting irritation to the Warsaw government.

Convoys of riot police were seen Wednesday on the road to Gdansk, suggesting that authorities were preparing to eject strikers there by force.

Although it was difficult to make an accurate count of struck facilities, it appeared Wednesday night that nine Silesian coal mines still were occupied by small groups of workers--probably no more than 4,000 miners in all. They are holding out for higher pay and the legalization of Solidarity, the outlawed independent trade union.

Shipyard Idle

Solidarity leader Lech Walesa remained in the Lenin Shipyard at Gdansk with about 250 strikers. The old and virtually bankrupt shipyard, which is economically at the bottom of the government’s list of concerns, remained idle.

The new strike at Nowa Huta, if it takes hold, will also be of concern to the authorities. An attempt to start a strike there on Monday failed, but the mill was the scene of a major strike in April, which ended when riot policemen stormed the mill and ejected the strikers.

Meanwhile, the government Council of Ministers, or Cabinet, announced that urgent measures are being taken to increase the supply of consumer goods in Poland’s shops, especially in food stores, where meat has been in short supply for the last month.

“The (meat) shortages are being remedied by frozen meat from reserves,” Jozwiak Saidom, the “home market” minister, announced. “Extra amounts of poultry are being assigned for meat rationing tickets.”

Importing Fabrics

Saidom said the government also plans to import additional cotton and artificial fibers “in order to increase output and market supplies of light industry products.”

It was the second time in as many days that the government, without directly acknowledging it, had responded to issues raised by the wave of strikes, which started Aug. 15 in the coal mines of Silesia.

On Tuesday, the government announced that a special session of the Parliament next week will take up the issue of the national economy--and what has gone wrong with plans to rescue it from its downward slide.

The outbreak of strikes is the second to hit Poland this year and marks the most significant period of labor unrest here since the Solidarity era of 1980 and 1981. The earlier strikes, in April and May, involved fewer workplaces but were perhaps more dramatic since they were the first Solidarity-led strikes in seven years.

Solidarity and the government both have met with frustration in the present strike situation. Solidarity has not been able to get the strikes to spread further around the country and has failed in several strike attempts at large factories, including the Ursus tractor factory in Warsaw.

Risking Public Outrage

Although the number of strikes has declined in the past two days, some strikers are hanging on stubbornly and may pressure the government to use the police or the military to end them. This could risk public outrage and bring on still more walkouts.

On both sides, the assessment Wednesday was cautious. “The strike situation is wavering,” Adam Michnik, a Solidarity activist, said at his headquarters at St. Brygida’s Church in Gdansk.

Government spokesman Jerzy Urban said he is not sure that the regime has gained the upper hand in the strikes.

“There is more and more news about strikes ended,” he told the Associated Press, “but on the other hand there are new centers of worker conflicts still appearing.”

The government announced earlier this week that losses from the coal mine work stoppages were costing the country $1.5 million a day in exports. It has since complained about losses from the port strikes, detailing the number of ships that have turned away from Polish harbors without taking on Polish exports and thus losing still more revenue.