Word: presidium
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...creation of a permanent committee composed of government and labor leaders to discuss Poland's pressing economic problems. Mutual distrust, however, remains so profound that the suggestion quickly became the focus of a new row between the party and Solidarity. The union's eleven-man presidium rejected the offer because it objected to the inclusion of the old Communist-controlled unions, which still claim to have 4 million members. The government termed Solidarity's response "outrageous," but nonetheless accepted the union's offer to hold bilateral talks on how to alleviate the growing food shortages...
...grumbling had started on the eve of the conclave, when Walesa and three other members of the union's eleven-man presidium accepted a compromise plan for worker self-management without consulting the rank-and-file. The new plan, which would give workers a limited voice in choosing their own plant managers, fell short of initial sweeping demands for worker autonomy. Many of the delegates returned to Gdansk spoiling for a fight with their own leaders...
Under the barrage of threats from Moscow and Warsaw, Solidarity's presidium moved to defuse the potentially explosive issue of worker self-management. Scaling down its previous demands for worker autonomy, the union proposed to draw up, with the government, a list of strategic enterprises whose managers would be appointed by the state; managers of all other enterprises would be appointed by workers' councils. Each side would have a right to veto the other's appointments, with the courts acting as final arbiter. At week's end parliament passed a self-management bill almost identical...
Denied the chance to photograph the moments of reunion, the press had to settle for a morning-after press conference, with the hostages impersonally lined up like the Soviet Presidium. It wasn't the cozy atmosphere that TV interviewers favor. The first question asked at the press conference was not even about the hostages' welfare, or about their families: it was Daniel Schorr wanting to know the hostages' attitude toward the press. Did Schorr expect a testimonial from them, or would he have been just as happy (since TV interviewers like to elicit on-screen emotion...
...Walesa, though he is certainly its symbol and central force. Solidarity's 18-member leadership sprang directly from last summer's 21-day strike, and thus has a distinct Baltic coast flavor. Many are experienced labor activists who have been in trouble with the authorities before. One presidium member, Anna Walentynowicz, 51, was fired from her job as a crane operator a week before the Lenin Shipyard flare-up last August. "The immediate cause of the strike was to have me rehired," she says with a trace of wonder. "Nobody thought it would have the effect...