Warsaw – Two of Poland’s largest unions said Monday they were to boycot a planned televised debate with the government, saying Prime Minister Donald Tusk had invited other smaller unions to sow discord and harm negotiations.

The debate was to square off Tusk and unionists from the ailing Gdansk shipyard to discuss the struggling shipbuilding industry and the financial crisis.

The historic shipyard on the Baltic coast is the birthplace of Lech Walesa’s Solidarity union, which held strikes in the 1980s that helped topple communism.

But the facility has run on hard times after the fall of communism in 1989, and was kept going with state subsidies.

Unionists from OPZZ and Solidarity opted out of the debate, accusing Tusk of bringing a “Trojan Horse” into the talks by inviting two minor unions that would make an agreement tougher.

The OPZZ and Solidarity officials said they represented most of the Gdansk workforce.

But government spokesman Pawel Gras said the invitation to all unions still stood, and that the debate would go live Monday night regardless.

“We don’t know why Solidarity is so afraid of talks in the presence of other unionists,” Gras said. “Places will be waiting until the last minute.”

Gras said the government wanted to “treat everyone equally” by inviting all the unions who had registered members at the shipyards. (dpa)