Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 29, 1990 TAG: 9005290022
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WARSAW, POLAND LENGTH: Medium
Walesa's middle-of-the-night intercession halted a weeklong strike that pitted workers against the government's post-Communist economic reformers, who refused to negotiate with the workers over wages, arguing that a capitulation on salary demands could lead to more strikes.
The workers had threatened a 90-minute nationwide strike for Monday, but after a meeting with Walesa in the northern city of Slupsk that ended at 1:30 a.m. local time, the strike was called off. The transport minister said that passenger service would be fully restored by today.
The work stoppage had virtually paralyzed the Baltic ports of Szczecin and Gdansk.
According to the agreement, the management of the state-run railroads will meet with unions to iron out grievances. Walesa said that he would meet with the workers' strike committee June 13.
Walesa said that the agreement suspending the strike included "no promises that would be impossible to fulfill later."
Walesa holds no official government position, and, indeed, has had his differences with the government of Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, mostly over the impact of the government's austerity measures on Polish workers.
Strict wage controls coupled with sharply rising prices have reduced real incomes by an estimated 40 percent, a hardship Walesa sympathized with in his negotiations with the workers. "Your demands are right, but the form that you are doing it in . . . a strike in the present situation, is anarchy on the road to the construction of a democracy."
The Solidarity leader's aides have made it clear that Walesa is preparing to run for the presidency of Poland, possibly as early as next year, if President Wojciech Jaruzelski, the former Communist Party leader, steps down from the office.
While the government could take heart at the conclusion of the strike, officials were disappointed with the low turnout of 42 percent of registered voters in Sunday's local government elections.
They were the first free local elections in Poland since before World War II, and the government had urged public participation as a means of rooting local Communist officials out of office.
Although it is virtually certain that most incumbents were removed in the vote, officials had hoped that the turnout would at least equal the 60 percent recorded for last year's partially free parliamentary elections.
"The first free elections prove that democracy will not appear automatically together with lifting limitations on creating it," said a commentary in the Solidarity daily newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza.
by CNB