From: "Curtis Price" <cansv-AT-igc.apc.org>
Date:          Sun, 30 Mar 1997 19:29:22 +0000
Subject:       (Fwd) Russians protest at wage delays but many stay home


------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Thu, 27 Mar 1997 17:55:01 -0800
From:          NewsHound <speak-AT-hound.com>

Reply-to:      speak-AT-hound.com
Subject:       Russians protest at wage delays but many stay home



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Posted at 4:33 a.m. PST Thursday, March 27, 1997
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Russians protest at wage delays but many stay home

By Adam Tanner

KRASNODAR, Russia, March 27 (Reuter) - Russia's long-awaited explosion of industrial action against unpaid wages and pensions faded into a day of noisy but limited protests on Wednesday as thousands
rather than millions of >>workers<< took to the streets.

In Krasnodar, an agricultural city of half a million in the heart of the communist-dominated Red Belt, just a few thousand >>workers<< rallied in the main square in the centre of town.

That was short of even >>trade<< >>unions<<' modest hopes that 25,000 people would demonstrate -- half as many as last May Day.

``Public apathy is very high. People don't believe this will lead to anything,'' said taxi driver Yuri Zalessky.

Elsewhere in Russia, police reported tens of thousands of marchers and unions said hundreds of thousands were on >>strike<<. But many strikers come from plants that are already idle. It was hard to 
ay how many people were actively joining the protests.

There were no reports of violence, although many marchers called on President Boris Yeltsin and his newly reshuffled government to quit.

``This is a political >>strike<<. We are going to pass a motion of no confidence in the president,'' said a defence >>worker<< in the industrial and high-technology city of Novosibirsk, three time z
nes and 3,000 km (1,900 miles) east of Moscow.

Police said up to 20,000 people were marching in the city, which has a population of 1.5 million.

The protests, called by unions weeks ago, are the first test for the new cabinet, named over recent weeks. Unions forecast 20 million people would turn out, including over 100,000 in Moscow.

But only about 10,000 Muscovites gathered as protesters began their march under fluttering red flags near the Kremlin.

``The Far East and Siberia have effectively expressed no-confidence in the government,'' Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov told reporters as he joined the rally.

``Changes in the government have convinced no one. This march is going from (the Pacific city of) Vladivostok to Kaliningrad (on the Baltic) and no one can stop it.''

The demonstrations, which are backed by the communist opposition, will give an outlet to frustrations which have built up in the six years of economic reform -- a painful process which has opened a 
awning gulf between rich and poor.

Ministers admit >>workers<< and pensioners are owed 50 trillion roubles ($8.8 billion), including 10 trillion from the state.

They have promised to resolve the wage crisis as quickly as possible. But new first deputy prime ministers Anatoly Chubais and Boris Nemtsov have also pledged to speed up reforms.

The changes, designed to transform the Soviet-era centrally planned economy into a market system modelled on that in the West, have brought colourful goods into Russia's once-bare shops. But million
 of people cannot afford to buy.

Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin told his new cabinet on Thursday that the protests were a ``vivid and objective measure'' of the seriousness of the problem and he said the government would not ig
ore them.

The demonstrations started in the Far East and >>trade<< >>unions<< said 50,000 people had joined a march in Vladivostok, a colourful procession of people and red banners which snaked its way throug
 town. Police put the number at just 15,000.

``I want to live without shocks and without Yeltsin's therapy,'' read one banner, referring to the economic reforms the president is trying to introduce in Russia.

Yeltsin, who was spending the day at the official Gorky-9 residence outside Moscow, has said he is concerned at the non-payments and he signed a decree on Thursday aiming at tightening control over 
udget money used to pay arrears.

But the protests were far from universal.

Union leaders from the miners, long Russia's most militant >>workers<< and a group hit hard by pay arrears, said they were not >>striking<< and were not calling on Yeltsin's government to quit.

The miners backed Yeltsin in his early struggles against the communists but dislike many of his current policies, but they have decided to give the new government a chance.

Firms in the key metals and energy sectors said output would not be affected. Air traffic controllers were not on >>strike<< and cosmonauts on the orbiting Mir station were working normally.  REUTER
Reut07:19 03-27-97 

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