Way for Talks on Solidarity Is Open as Last Strikes End

The last strike in a wave of work protests that began in Poland three weeks ago ended Saturday when the final 250 coal miners holding out in Silesia gave up their occupation of the mine.

They did so only after a marathon session, stretching over two days, with Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, who had been trying since Wednesday to persuade strikers across the country to accept his bargain to begin talks with the government over the legalization of the banned trade union.

Port and transport workers in the Baltic seaport of Szczecin ended their work stoppage Saturday morning.

The miners at the July Manifesto coal mine, a Solidarity banner held aloft, ended their strike in the early afternoon.

“We know that he (Walesa) is tired and has a lot of other things to do,” said Lech Bosiak, one of the strike leaders at the mine in Jastrzebie, “but we are very happy he came here to see us.”

The end of the strikes paves the way for a series of round-table discussions proposed Aug. 26 by the government.

Walesa held his first meeting with the Polish government in six years on Wednesday, agreeing to press for an end to the strike in exchange for the government’s pledge to “discuss” the possible legalization of Solidarity, which was officially suspended in 1981 and formally outlawed in 1982. Walesa urged the strikers--then holding out at 10 enterprises around the country--to accept the deal as Solidarity’s best chance since the banning to regain official recognition.

According to sources close to the Roman Catholic Church, which has been mediating between Solidarity and the government, both sides are preparing lists of candidates to participate in the round-table discussions. Although more preliminary meetings between Walesa and the government have been mentioned by Solidarity activists, the full round-table discussions could begin sooner than expected, church sources said.

The unexpected worker resistance to Walesa’s proposal came for two reasons. First, hard-line union activists, not trusting the government, believed that strikes were the only means of bringing the authorities to the bargaining table. A second concern was job security for the strikers, who feared that management would dismiss the strike organizers.

The outbreak of strikes was the second in Poland this year and affected more than 100,000 workers and caused heavy export losses for the country, due largely to the curtailed coal production and the crippled ports in Gdansk and Szczecin.

Threat of More Strikes

The authorities proposed the talks under the pressure of the strikes, after more influential elements of the government came to believe--as the Solidarity leadership has been saying for some time--that more strikes could be expected, within weeks or months, unless the government took steps to draw in the opposition to win social support for its economic reform plans.

The reforms have run into serious trouble all year, stalled in part by government inefficiency and by public complaint over escalating prices.

The government’s response to the year’s first round of strikes, in April and May, was to buy worker peace with large pay increases. Since then, inflation has continued to mount, with the nation’s official labor union complaining last week that it had reached 62%.