Polish bishop urges union to quash plans for strike

As the Soviet Union stepped up its news media campaign against the reform movement in Poland, a Polish bishop urged union leaders not to approve plans for a regional strike.

"I want to tell you not to put the whole problem on a knife edge," Bishop Jan Michalski told national leaders of the Solidarity union in the northern town of Bydgoszcz, where they were meeting to decide whether to endorse a call by the local branch to strike next week.

Bishop Michalski, saying he spoke in the name of Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, the late Roman Catholic primate of Poland, said all church leaders were against further strikes. A two-hour warning strike June 11 and an indefinite strike beginning June 15 were called by the local Solidarity branch to protest official failure to identify and punish those responsible for an incident involving police in March when three Solidarity activists were beaten u p.