Crisis in Coal

The first economic consequence of the new independence hit Poland last week. For lack of coal, iron foundries and chemical factories closed down, other heavy industries went on part-time, and the coal-burning railways canceled some 75 regular train schedules. Rushing to the Silesian mining center of Katowice, Wladyslaw Gomulka told the miners that their out put had slid off calamitously since they tasted freedom. Unless they spent more time in the pits and less at meetings, and unless they began obeying mine bosses' orders again, said Gomulka, Poland would not have enough coal to send abroad for the food and raw materials it must import to live on. There is "no possibility" of general wage raises in 1957, said he, without a simultaneous increase in production. But Gomulka had a special concession for the miners: since they were underpaid, their "basic wages should be appropriately raised." This did not stop absenteeism. Two days later, at one nearby mine, 311 of 1,318 miners failed to report for work.

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