Solidarnosc call end strikes
Socialist Organiser1981 1981-11-05Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 5 →
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STRAJK THE Presidium of Solidarnosc has called upon its ten million members to immediately cease all strike action "The economic situation is critical. On the one hand, numerous problems continue to remain unresolved and lead to injustices and provocations which only heighten public indignation. On the other hand, there are protest actions of a wildcat character ...
"Wishing to salvage all that we have gained as a trade union and to safeguard out possibility of carrying out actions which are not contrary to society's interest, we therefore call on the members of Solidarnosc to cease immediately all strike action.
Sp ist tr The three-hour general strike called officially last Wednesday by the Union's Presidium, has not quenched the desire of the rank and file workers. In fact, of the 49 provinces, 23 either still have strikes or are planning some strike action in the proximate future.
Continuing food shortages, the breakdown of the distribution system and the shortages of fuel and other heating materials, which will become more and more urgent as winter comes into its own-are sweeping apart the last remnants of the Polish workers' and farmers' patience.
One of the main justifications for the new appeal to the union's membership is that the union risks "losing the support of the population: the realisation of the union's political objectives will become completely void of all meaning."
On both accounts the "justification" for the call to end unofficial action is erroneous.
The wildcat strikes an expression of dissatisfaction with the moderate, compliant politics of the Walesa leadership. Rather than popular anger becoming dissipated and sapped, a new deeper and fiercer wave of protest and anger is sweeping the country, threatening to explode.
The riots in Katowice and Wroclaw, the continuing strike in the Jelenia Gora district, demanding the replacement of a local ComWalesa munist apparatchik and the louder proclamations of Solidarnosc militants like Jurczyk (runner-up in the Solidarnose leadership elections) of the need to pull out of the Warsaw Pact, all point in the opposite direction from Walesa's prognosIs.
The union's objectives and political/social aims, can only be those which the rank and file desires to argue . and fight for. Right now, the rank and file in its hundreds of thousands are voting with their feet against CP control in the factories and farms and against the deprivations they are daily suffering-and, no doubt, against the plans the bureaucrats, the Church and the Solidarnose moderates have for dumping the burden of putting the country back together again on their to shoulders.
In a new government reshuffle, General Jarulzelski, trying to create a "broader social and political consensus" around the government, has co-opted into ministerial posts, the head of the small Democratic Party, Edward Kowakzyk who will have the unenviable task of sorting out internal trade, Was ete a leader od Ine PAX other assorted technocrats.
After months of angling for a broad National Front type government which would have sufficient moral authority as well as physical muscle to impose order on the country, the Stalinists have had to temporarily settle for this rather less grandiose "raprochement" with society.
Refused
So far, the increasingly independent Sejm (Parliament) has, in exchange for Walesa's appeal, refused to ratify Jerzelski's request that a statutory ban be imposed on all future strikes and industrial action.
Walesa's appeal was bolstered up by threats to resign if it was not accepted by Solidarnose members, and if Solidarnosc's National Commission-a much more radical body than Walesa's virtually hand-picked Presidium-was not prepared to discuss disciplinary action against leaders of unofficial strike actions. THE TRIAL of the leaders of the' fascist National Action Party (NAP) has been one of the most sensitive issues for the military junta headed by General Evren.
Prosecutors have sought capital punishment of around 300 fascist leaders of NAP.
Also on trial were around 300 leaders and militant members of fascist front organisations, bringing the total number to around 600.
This combination (the official party leadership tried Turkish cops in t fascist terminology, 1 death threat. And it understood as such. Ir following session two o judges resigned The fascist leaders delighted by the resign statements and cheerer judges by saying "That well done.
This was obviously as a victory for Turkesh the junta. But two y later came a shock der by the Generals to down the major right newspaper, Tercuman.