Communist-Led Unions Hold 1st Protest Against Solidarity Rule

This country’ Communist-led labor unions staged their first demonstration Friday against the Solidarity-led government.

Union leader Alfred Miodowicz and about 150 supporters demonstrated in drizzling rain outside Parliament to protest an “avalanche of price rises” under the month-old government of Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki.

Miodowicz, whose unions claim 7 million members, said supporters were tired of “paper protests” and wanted action. “This demonstration in the rain is one of the signs that we are starting protests of a new type,” he said.

He said the economic crisis had turned Poland into a powder keg and rough times were ahead that could eventually bring the end of Mazowiecki’s government.

Food prices in Poland rose 187% in August and 51% in September after the former Communist government lifted price controls. Officials in the present government fear inflation may reach 900% to 1,000% by the end of the year.

Miodowicz and his mainly elderly supporters staged the union protest as Parliament debated a bill to index wages by pegging them to increases in the cost-of-living.

A delegation handed a petition calling the bill ill-prepared and inadequate to Speaker Mikolaj Kozakiewicz. Most working families were having to reduce consumption and many were reaching the brink of poverty, the petition said.

Miodowicz said workers should receive full compensation for price boosts, not just the 80% proposed in the bill.

Miodowicz, a few months ago one of Poland’s rulers on the Communist Party Politburo, said he did not agree with recent warnings of civil war by Solidarity leader Lech Walesa.

But he said Poland was like a time bomb.

“The present situation is very difficult, we are sitting on a powder keg,” Miodowicz said. “Who or what is going to put out the fire? It’s like a time bomb. . . .”