News In Brief

Poland's new trade unions gain national representation

Poland's new trade unions, the successors to the banned Solidarity movement, agreed Saturday to take an important step toward creating a national organization. They voted to adopt a ''national agreement'' giving them representation at the national level. The official news agency PAP described the adoption as ''a historic event.'' Opposition activists allege that the new unions, created after Solidarity was suppressed under martial law in 1981, are little freer of government influence than the old government-controlled union association of the '70s, the CRZZ, which Solidarity swept aside in 1980.