BERLIN, Dec. 11--Communist East Germany today decreed drastic laws to halt the mass westward flight of refugees crippling the worker force.

The East German Parliament rubber-stamped the demand of the justice minister, Hilde Benjamin, for powers to prosecute fleeing citizens. They now are escaping from the satellite at the rate of about 800 a day.

The new laws stipulate imprisonment at hard labor not only for intercepted refugees but for friends and relatives who help them in any way.

Speaking before a Parliament session in East Berlin, Mrs. Benjamin declared: "The West German NATO organs are trying to interfere with our economic development by luring away manpower."

East Germans attempting to escape can now be jailed for up to three years and heavily fined. Their assistant friends are open to similar penalties.

Bulganin Note Rejected

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11--The United States coldly dismissed today Soviet Premier Bulganin's new letter to President Eisenhower as an attempt to influence next week's Atlantic Pact summit meeting.

The State Department publicly pinned a propaganda label on the 15-page message after Eisenhower met with Secretary of State Dulles to review final arrangements for the Allied meeting opening in Paris Monday.