Warsaw to Let Solidarity Publish

The government on Friday gave Solidarity the right to publish its own daily and weekly newspapers but refused to grant the banned union’s demand for access to state-owned television.

Representatives at the 4-week-old Solidarity-government talks, however, made progress on a formula for indexing wage increases.

The two sides agreed on a level of 80% of the rate of inflation, which exceeded 60% in 1988.

Solidarity representatives expressed disappointment with the mass media issue in the government-opposition talks that began Feb. 6.

“We have approval for a Solidarity weekly, for regional weeklies and for a daily,” said journalist and delegate Dariusz Fikus. “This is little, but still it is something.”

As part of the historic discussions, Solidarity, the first independent trade union in the East Bloc, will be re-legalized. The union was formed in 1980.

At a news conference, Bogdan Jahacz, government co-chairman of the mass media committee, acknowledged the slow progress over communications issues.

“Little progress has been made, but the problems we are discussing are complicated,” he said. “I think the people who were sitting down at the round table had no illusions it would be easy.”

Solidarity spokesman Janusz Onyszkiewicz said the government promised that independent candidates in the forthcoming election campaign in June would be permitted access to the mass media.

Solidarity also demanded one television broadcast per day but the government agreed to permit only one per week. The Communist-allied Democratic and Peasant parties also demanded access to the state-owned, Communist Party-controlled television.