Dial an Unappetizing Choice

A butterfingered regime apologizes, but hikes prices anyway

Raising food prices is a risky undertaking in Poland. Former Communist Party Secretary Wladyslaw Gomulka fell from power in 1970 partly because of unrest over food price hikes, and the organizing drive that produced Solidarity was born out of anger over 1980 increases. With such memories still painfully fresh, the government of General Wojciech Jaruzelski last week began imposing the third set of price increases since martial law was declared in December 1981 and the first since it was lifted last July. The increases were sure to appear at the top of the agenda when Communist Party officials gathered at week's end for the 14th plenary session of the United Workers' Party. This time, however, the people will have a say in what prices are raised.

Because of an agreement reached in July to increase payments for farmers' crops, Poles will have to shell out as much as $1.72 billion more at the grocery counter to recoup the expenditure beginning next Jan. 1. The authorities have proposed three schemes that would each produce the same total revenue but would differ in how much individual prices are raised. In a rare bow to customer preference, Poles are permitted to vote for the plan they dislike the least by calling special telephone numbers at government offices and television stations.

If the phone-in gimmick caught consumers by surprise, the price hikes did not. They were part of a series of painful economic measures announced in February 1982. Since then, Poland's foreign debt has remained at $26 billion, while the economy as a whole has stagnated. The Polish standard of living, many economists agree, has dropped by about 25%. Poles were particularly outraged by the government's announcement that butter would be rationed. The move came barely a month after officials had given public assurances that no such plan was being considered. Thousands of housewives quickly stormed shops to squabble over the blocks of butter that were still available, scuffling with shopkeepers and shouting abuse at passing militia patrols.

Caught off balance by mounting anger over its butterfingered handling of the affair, the government finally relented. The announcement of rationing, it said in a rare concession of fault, "testified to a lack of sufficient sensitivity to the public reception." More astonishing was what came next in the official communique: "The government apologizes to citizens, especially to women, for the trouble and anxiety." Looking for other ways to dampen the protests, Jaruzelski sacked Deputy Minister of Distribution and Services Edward Szymanski. Andrzej Bors, another deputy, was allowed to resign.

Though the butter rationing was apparently unrelated to the new price increases, the net effect of the moves was to put Poles in a rancid mood. Calls to the hot lines to register preferences among the three plans were trickling in last week at the rate of only ten an hour, mainly because some callers spent up to 30 minutes asking questions. Not all the inquiries were polite: some calls have consisted of nothing but a string of obscenities.

Indeed, the choices are unappetizing. The price for a kilogram of ham, for example, would rise from the current $5.78 to $7.36 under plan 1, to $7.89 under plan 2 and to $8.42 under plan 3. Edam cheese would go from $2.10 per kg now to $2.42 under plans 1 and 2 and to $2.65 under plan 3. The particularly large price increases of plan 3 would be partly offset by higher subsidies to below-average incomes. While plans 1 and 2 would boost incomes of less than $74 a month by $3, plan 3 would provide a $4 subsidy to workers earning $84 a month or less.

At the same time the government was struggling with the food-price problem, it was trying to raise money for a new hospital in Lodz to be named in honor of the nation's mothers. The latest Polish joke: the hospital will be filled with housewives exhausted from waiting in food lines. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.