Walesa Rejects Talks, Says Strikes to Go On : Vows Polish Stoppages Won’t End Until Regime Is Willing to Discuss Legalizing Solidarity

Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, rejecting the Polish government’s call for “round-table” talks, said Monday that strikes would continue in Poland until officials indicate they are willing to discuss legalizing the outlawed labor movement.

But senior military officials warned that the strikes would not be “indefinitely tolerated.”

Walesa issued his statement from inside the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk as Solidarity advisers convened in the port city to outline strategy for the talks, proposed last week by Internal Affairs Minister Czeslaw Kiszczak.

“When it appears that these talks open perspectives of solving our problems, and especially the issue of the legal status of Solidarity, the strikes will be suspended,” Walesa said.

Ten strikes are still in progress, including one at the Stalowa Wola armaments factory in south-central Poland, where an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 additional workers joined a strike started last week by a smaller group.

Late in the day, United Press International reported that Labor Minister Ireneusz Sekula warned strikers that if they did not resume work by Wednesday they would be fired.

‘An Essential Threat’

According to the official news agency PAP, Sekula said the spate of strikes “constitute an essential threat to the normal functioning of the state and its economy.”

The Communist Party’s Central Committee, in a meeting over the weekend, endorsed Kiszczak’s plan for round-table discussions with various groups in an attempt to solve Poland’s severe economic and social problems. The government has indicated that Walesa could take part in the discussions.

It remained unclear, however, whether such talks would take place if Walesa insists, as he is expected to do, on being recognized as a leader of the labor movement that the government and the party regard as an “illegal structure.”

Condition for Talks

The government’s only announced condition for the talks is that the participants not be people who “reject Poland’s constitutional order.”

After an initial burst of optimism over the Kiszczak offer Friday, observers close to both sides have become more guarded in their expectations.

The government is pressing for an end to the strikes, the second major outbreak of labor unrest this year, before going ahead with talks.

Solidarity, on the other hand, fears that the government will find a way to postpone discussions indefinitely without the continuing pressure of the work stoppages, which continue to tie up much of the nation’s port facilities at Szczecin and Gdansk. Of the 14 coal mines that joined the strikes, one--at Jastrzebie in southern Poland--remains idled by strikers.

Sources say the party is divided on the issue, with a large faction believing that the government should come down hard on the strikers, using force to end the remaining walkouts. A smaller, but possibly more influential, faction believes that some kind of dialogue must be undertaken with Solidarity in order to prevent another outbreak of strikes in the near future.

Warns of a ‘Third Act’

Last week, a deputy interior minister warned of the consequences of a “third act in this tragedy,” suggesting that another round of strikes is likely this year unless quick action is taken to build a national consensus.

In a speech to the Central Committee, Politburo member Wladislaw Baka, who is considered a likely candidate to replace Premier Zbigniew Messner if the government is reorganized, spoke of thousands of letters sent by citizens to the Central Committee.

Most of the letters, he said, disagreed with the intentions of the strike organizers, “but at the same time social dissatisfaction with the existing situation is being voiced--a great worry about what will happen next.”

Baka went on to describe the quality of life in Poland and the problems facing the beleaguered government.

“A considerable number of Poles are frustrated,” he said, “not so much by low earnings but rather by the unceasing necessity to overcome difficulties they come across in everyday life. This applies equally to villages and towns. A Pole hunts for basic medicines, he carries his own single-use injector when going to a clinic, wastes 45 minutes at a bus stop, to no avail asks the dustmen to come for litter, spends weeks asking housing administration people to repair the roof. In this way, the citizen’s everyday life becomes not only difficult but also extremely humiliating.”

Economic Crisis

He continued: “The disappointment stems not only from the present economic situation; there is also a spreading conviction that Poland will remain bogged in the economic crisis for many years--a conviction that the present economic policy is unable to cope with the existing obstacles, that the situation will deteriorate rather than improve. This happens six years after the beginning of the economic reform. We cannot overlook this.”

Baka concluded that any plan to rescue the economy would fail without social support and “developing democratic institutions and mechanisms of social life.”

Government and party officials like Baka appear to be searching for acceptable conditions for meeting with Walesa, but the stance of the Solidarity leadership seems to be growing tougher.

Bogdan Borosiewicz, an influential member of the Gdansk region’s Solidarity committee, said the strikers will not end their walkout empty-handed, as they did in a shipyard strike in May.