Word: warsaw
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...thundered Party Boss Stanislaw Kania. Added Politburo Member Kazimierz Barcikowski: "Some extremists look for success not in trade union work but in maintaining a permanent pressure on state authorities. These are very dangerous tactics." Those words were spoken last week at a meeting of regional Communist Party leaders in Warsaw. They appeared to signal the start of a hardening line to ward Solidarity, Poland's federation of independent trade unions, as the government and workers engaged in a perilous new round of labor confrontations...
...Warsaw, meanwhile, union leaders called a four-hour bus and streetcar strike at week's end to protest threatened pay cuts for workers who had stayed away from their jobs the previous Saturday. Other stoppages took place in the southern towns of Legnica and Mielec. Solidarity accused the Warsaw authorities of reneging on a promise to reduce the work week from six to five days. The government had granted the concession during negotiations that ended last summer's crippling national strike wave...
...egged on by restive local chapters, rejected the half-loaf and unilaterally declared all Saturdays work-free. According to Solidarity officers, up to 85% of Poland's workers stayed at home on Jan. 10. In the face of these mounting pressures-and threats of a possible general strike-Warsaw has agreed to hold talks this week to seek a way out of the Saturday impasse...
...Saturday work boycott renewed fears that Solidarity's escalating demands could bring on a Soviet invasion. These worries were heightened by the arrival in Warsaw last week of Soviet Marshal Viktor Kulikov, commander in chief of Warsaw Pact Joint Armed Forces. Western observers interpreted Kulikov's visit as both a gesture of support for the Kania regime and a warning to the restive workers. Some analysts speculated that Kulikov may have discussed plans for joint maneuvers on Polish soil-an operation that could serve as a cover for Soviet intervention...
...immediate casualty of Warsaw's hardening line appeared to be Rural Solidarity, the 600,000-member independent farmers' union that has been seeking official recognition since September. Farm leaders had taken heart when the Supreme Court deferred a final decision on the group's legal status last month. That optimism now seems ill-founded. In his tough speech to party members, Kania declared: "We register our categorical opposition to all attempts at inciting the countryside, at sowing anarchy, or creating a political opposition." Among the organizers of the new farmers' movement, Kania charged, were "those...