Poland’s Steel, Ship Workers Call Off Strikes

Solidarity leader Lech Walesa persuaded shipyard and steel mill workers to end their strikes Thursday, but other strikers persisted, skeptical about the government’s promise to discuss legalization of the outlawed trade union movement.

Shipyard workers ended their occupation of the yards at Gdansk with a rush-hour procession to St. Brygida’s Church. Onlookers tossed flowers in their path and cheered encouragement at what looked like a victory for the strikers.

But the workers themselves voiced strong misgivings, even after their leaders met through the night to discuss Walesa’s report on his first meeting in six years with officials of the Communist government.

Firm Assurances

Walesa told them that his two-hour meeting on Wednesday with Gen. Czeslaw Kiszczak, the minister of internal affairs, resulted in firm assurances that Solidarity’s status and the question of trade union pluralism in Poland would be considered at a series of round-table discussions proposed by the government.

Steelworkers at Stalowa Wola, a mill in southeast Poland that produces heavy military equipment, also gave up their strike after listening to a telephone appeal from Walesa.

The situation at Stalowa Wola, sealed off by police, had been confused all day, with reports that the strike leaders there remained defiant. It was complicated further by reports that a policeman died Wednesday of a gunshot wound. A government spokesman suggested later that the death could have been suicide “brought on by psychological pressure.”

Meanwhile, strikes continued by port workers in Gdansk and Szczecin and at the July Manifesto coal mine in Jastrzebie, where the strikes began on Aug. 15. At its peak, the wave of strikes involved 14 coal mines and six other enterprises.

Explanation Sought

Solidarity adviser Bronislaw Geremek said the miners at Jastrzebie had asked Walesa to come to the mine to explain why their strike should be ended. It was not known whether Walesa would go.

Geremek said he thought the strikes would be over by today and added that “the strike committees are again talking with management at all the striking enterprises.”

The government news agency PAP reported later that talks between strikers and management at the port of Szczecin had broken off.

It became clear, upon Walesa’s return to the shipyards after his meeting in Warsaw, that militants on the workers’ strike committee there were doubtful about the bargain Walesa brought to them.

Walesa met with the strike committee for three hours, until the early hours of the day. After he left, union spokesmen said, the committee members talked through the night and then voted, by what was described as a narrow margin, to recommend to the workers that they end the strike. Walesa returned to the shipyard in the morning to present his case to the workers.

‘This Is Not Cowardice’

“We cannot gain anything more at this time,” Walesa reportedly told them. “This is not cowardice; this is responsibility.”

After leaving the shipyard to talk with port workers, Walesa went to St. Brygida’s with the shipyard strikers. In a jovial mood, he said jokingly that “more than 100%” of the workers had supported his appeal to stop the strike.

Hard-liners in the union, many of them young workers who were teen-agers when the organization was formed eight years ago, believe that the government’s offer to discuss Solidarity’s legalization is little more than a ploy to buy labor peace. Without the continuing pressure of the strikes, they argued, the government will eventually back away from its pledge.

The young militants were not alone in their skepticism about the government’s bid to open a dialogue with Solidarity’s leaders, who until the past few months had been treated with indifference by the authorities.

No Guarantees

Veteran Solidarity advisers like Geremek acknowledge that the more liberal elements in the Communist Party and the government may have seen the need to win public support with the opening to Solidarity. But they admit there are no guarantees that the process will not break down.

“My sense is that it depends on the political will of the government,” Geremek said.

The government and Solidarity have both acknowledged that there is little chance of the union returning to legal life in the form it had assumed by the time it was outlawed in 1982.

Solidarity advisers say the government will refuse to accept an organizational structure encompassing the entire country or even regions. More likely, they say, Solidarity will be reintroduced in factories and mills, organized by occupation rather than geography. The government fears that a geographic organization, still employed by Solidarity, is more easily adapted into a political organization.

The union leaders say they will insist, however, on trade union pluralism--that is, more than one union at each enterprise. The government can be expected to resist.

No further talks have been scheduled between Walesa and the government, but it is expected that preliminary discussions will be held to agree on more ground rules before the government moves on to the round-table discussions it proposed.