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an AN old trade unionists' cartoon shows a union bureaucrat and a boss furiously denouncing each other across a table, while underneath the table they are cordially: shaking hands.

Relations between Poland's military regime and the Western powers are rather like that.

The US magazine Newsweek last month revealed that in late 1981:

"By the time General Jaruzelski sent his tanks and troops into the streets, the agency had had a complete copy of his operation plan for a full month. 'For a very long time there were very few things that went on at the upper levels of the Polish military that the CIA didn't know about, said one source."

But the CIA chose not to blow the whistle. Officially the reason was that to do so would threaten their agent, a colonel at Polish army HQ: continued spying was more important than the fate of the Polish workers.

The true reason may be even more cynical thinking: a western banker commented soon after martial law, "If a few people are shot in the cause of getting the economy moving again, then it would be a small price to pay."

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported last Thursday, 13th, "Western busiprofit in Poland. Plenty. of nessmen find The 'investment law allows foreigners to found private companies in Poland with Western capital. For their first three years in business, overseas investors pay no corporate taxes. They are also allowed to transfer back to the West a proportion of protits earned in Poland each year, and retain up to 50% of „profits made on exports.

The firms - often owned by emigre Poles in Europe or the USA - have turnovers sometimes as large as $40 million a year. 360 new companies were founded last year alone. THE mass layoffs at Renault's Flins factory may soon be followed by similar lay-offs at the Billancourt works.

• This Monday, 17th, the Flins paintshop strikers voted overwhelmingly - 165 to 2 in a secret ballot - to reject management's latest offer. Renault offered a 140F (about £13) monthly increase in the paintshop's 'dirty job' bonus, but refused to budge an inch on the strikers' demand for a 300F (£29) bonus for all production workers.

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