Word: warsaw
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...Warsaw prevented an embarrassing standoff by reversing a previous refusal to negotiate and dispatching the Minister of Union Affairs, Stanislaw Ciosek, to Rzeszow. Ciosek informed the strikers the government was ready to talk. With that, Walesa and a handful of dissidents left for bargaining sessions in Warsaw. At week's end, after a 13-hour negotiating marathon, both sides announced agreement on the work week and access to the media. The government accepted the 40-hour week in principle but would only allow three free Saturdays a month this year; in addition, Solidarity would be granted a one-hour...
Perhaps the most significant action of all was a sit-in staged by 5,000 of the 9,000 students at the University of Lodz, 40 miles southwest of Warsaw. Students were in the hazardous forefront of Poland's violent anti-Soviet demonstrations in 1968, but they had taken little part in the latest upheavals. Last week they mobilized, occupying academic buildings at Lodz and settling in for a siege with sleeping bags. Among their demands: fewer courses on Marxism, less emphasis on Russian-language instruction, and an end to restrictions on foreign travel...
...Baltic seaport of Gdansk, sirens wailed to signal the start of a four-hour "warning strike" that interrupted public transport and shut down more than 800 plants. In Warsaw, red-and-white Polish flags fluttered defiantly over idle buses and streetcars as drivers joined workers from some 60 local factories and offices in a related half-day stoppage. On the outskirts of Bydgoszcz, 140 miles northwest of the capital, police turned back columns of angry tractor drivers who were seeking to stage a demonstration in the middle of the town. The snowballing protest climaxed on Saturday, when millions of workers...
That sort of dialogue may yet develop. Late last week Warsaw proposed a joint union-government commission to study the economic impact of ending Saturday labor. Government Spokesman Jozef Barecki, meanwhile, suggested the government might take up some of Solidarity's current demands-though he insisted authorities would not bow to an "ultimatum" from the workers. In spite of the week's bluster and turbulence, therefore, there still appeared to be some small chance for compromise-a chance neither side could afford to lose. The alternative was a mounting spiral of confrontation that could ultimately tempt the Soviets...
...Even as Warsaw held the line against militant workers and farmers, there were signs that it was taking some reform promises seriously. The government last week published a draft program for sweeping economic change that would put greater emphasis on the profit motive, consult worker councils on management decisions and grant more autonomy to individual factories. It would also make concessions to the basic demands of the country's private farmers, who own about 75% of the land and produce 80% of Poland's domestically grown food supply. Among other things, the program called for higher prices...