Russia Labor

Spending lavishly to cut short a nationwide coal miners' strike, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin on Saturday promised the industry more than $2 billion--enough to nudge disgruntled workers off their picket lines. Nearly all the striking miners resumed work Saturday, union leaders reported, ending a two-day protest that had shut down about two-thirds of Russia's coal mines. To outsiders, the government's concessions sounded modest enough: Prime Minister Viktor S.

In the frozen Siberian wilderness, there lies an untapped territory so abundant in natural resources that Russian officials proclaim it the richest region on Earth. Someday, they say, a monumental rail line--a second Trans-Siberian Railway--will haul minerals and timber from this hinterland and make Russia wealthy. The dream of exploiting this fortune dates back to the czars.

Hundreds of thousands of coal miners who haven't been paid in months went on strike Tuesday, demanding that Russia's Cabinet deliver their wages or resign. The walkout, which shut at least 100 of Russia's 287 coal mines, is the strongest protest in months against a cash shortage that is draining the economy in this sixth winter of painful post-Soviet reform.

In threadbare coats and bad temper, millions of long-unpaid state workers across Russia took to the streets Thursday to denounce the Kremlin for reforms they say have ruined the country. The one-day strike that idled schools, transportation and factories across the vast federation was believed to be the broadest labor unrest since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, even though it fell far short of a predicted 20 million marchers and widespread disorder.

The voice of Russian peasantry, historically so feeble, echoed again Tuesday in downtown Moscow as people from Central Russia's farming areas protested the government's agricultural policy or--as they put it--lack of one. Standing stoically in the rare September sunshine, the 1,500 protesters held up signs bearing slogans such as "Unhappy Peasant--Unhappy Country" and "We Are Losing Faith in Our Government."

As thousands of his supporters rallied in Moscow, Russian Federation leader Boris N. Yeltsin flew to Siberia on Monday to propose the suspension of a two-month-old strike by miners. Yeltsin is seeking to boost his authority with a popular mandate and create the image of a leader capable of resolving the Soviet Union's dire economic problems.

In threadbare coats and bad temper, millions of long-unpaid state workers across Russia took to the streets Thursday to denounce the Kremlin for reforms they say have ruined the country. The one-day strike that idled schools, transportation and factories across the vast federation was believed to be the broadest labor unrest since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, even though it fell far short of a predicted 20 million marchers and widespread disorder.

Five months after they last got paid, the miners of the Russian Far East are beginning to starve. By Friday, all 10,000 of them had stopped work--not, they say, out of ill will but simply because they are just too weak to handle the tough conditions underground. No coal is being extracted. The region's power plant workers, themselves unpaid for months, also are refusing to operate the stations that supply electricity to the factories, homes and port of the local capital, Vladivostok.

The latest evidence that the political situation is getting hotter in the former Soviet Union came last week from the South Pole. Russian scientists at five outposts in Antarctica went on strike. The all-male crew of 120 workers in the great frozen south has issued an ultimatum to the Russian government: Until further notice, the workers refuse to release data on the ozone layer.

It is late spring, but the snowdrifts in this coal miners' city beyond the Arctic Circle still loom higher than the rickety shacks at the edge of town. The Stalin-era prisoners who died by the thousands here are doubly buried--under permafrost and three more feet of glaring snow. As the temperatures drop and rise suddenly, the old suffer palpitations and weakness. The children's skin looks like yellowed wax. Raisa Kurdyukova, a teacher here, wishes she could live elsewhere.

"By order of the Russian government, Jan. 5, Sunday, will be shifted to Jan. 3, Friday, and also June 15, Sunday, to June 13, Friday, in 1997. Thus, Russian people will have four days off for the New Year holiday." This recent announcement by the Itar-Tass news agency is actually comprehensible to Russians, who have grown accustomed to a leadership that believes itself empowered to reverse the flow of rivers or rearrange the clock.

Hundreds of thousands of coal miners who haven't been paid in months went on strike Tuesday, demanding that Russia's Cabinet deliver their wages or resign. The walkout, which shut at least 100 of Russia's 287 coal mines, is the strongest protest in months against a cash shortage that is draining the economy in this sixth winter of painful post-Soviet reform.

When his wages failed to materialize for three months, Nikolai S. Lashkevich did what thousands of other Russians do when their government neglects to pay them and they have children to feed: He ripped off his workplace. Lashkevich's factory manufactured guns. In the evening, in his bedroom, he assembled stolen pieces of metal into guns while his two sons watched TV in the next room.

Hundreds of thousands of Russians took to the streets Tuesday, showing that President Boris N. Yeltsin faces more troubles even if he fully recovers from heart bypass surgery. Teachers, factory workers, miners and members of the military--the backbone of the nation in Soviet days, but now the stragglers in Russia's race for wealth--organized a nationwide day of protest against the government's failure to pay their wages virtually since the day Yeltsin was reelected four months ago.

Five months after they last got paid, the miners of the Russian Far East are beginning to starve. By Friday, all 10,000 of them had stopped work--not, they say, out of ill will but simply because they are just too weak to handle the tough conditions underground. No coal is being extracted. The region's power plant workers, themselves unpaid for months, also are refusing to operate the stations that supply electricity to the factories, homes and port of the local capital, Vladivostok.

Spending lavishly to cut short a nationwide coal miners' strike, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin on Saturday promised the industry more than $2 billion--enough to nudge disgruntled workers off their picket lines. Nearly all the striking miners resumed work Saturday, union leaders reported, ending a two-day protest that had shut down about two-thirds of Russia's coal mines. To outsiders, the government's concessions sounded modest enough: Prime Minister Viktor S.

"By order of the Russian government, Jan. 5, Sunday, will be shifted to Jan. 3, Friday, and also June 15, Sunday, to June 13, Friday, in 1997. Thus, Russian people will have four days off for the New Year holiday." This recent announcement by the Itar-Tass news agency is actually comprehensible to Russians, who have grown accustomed to a leadership that believes itself empowered to reverse the flow of rivers or rearrange the clock.

Lyudmila Zakharevich, 16, tops her class at an elite Moscow high school, but instead of planning a career, she dreams of becoming a full-time housewife. Lena Guzeeva, 22, on the other hand, desperately wants a professional position in one of the new private businesses in her central Russian city but worries that sexual exploitation has become so accepted that she will be jobless unless she agrees to submit to a potential employer's advances.

The door leads into a dark lobby, the concrete floor is cracked and crumbling. This is Botongkang dormitory--an isolated outpost of North Korea in the Russian Far East. The building is home to almost 100 North Korean laborers who work for bargain wages on construction sites on this part of Sakhalin Island, 4,300 miles east of Moscow.

The coal miners have been threatening to strike again. Power plant workers once more are demanding overdue wages. And now, this week's announcement: The government owes cars, refrigerators and television sets to hundreds of thousands of farmers who turned over their crops five years ago in exchange for promises of luxury goods. From her paper-heaped desk at the Finance Ministry, Elena Martianova sees no way out.