Yugoslavia Labor

A strike by engineers has disrupted rail traffic in northwest Yugoslavia and delayed some international services, Tanjug news agency said Wednesday.

On a whispered signal, 500 women in red smocks switched off their sewing machines last week on a factory floor the size of a city block, launching a three-day strike by 6,500 co-workers that toppled the plant's chief executive. The unrest spread to Vranje's hospital, ambulance service, bus company, technical school, food inspection lab and a shoe factory.

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, arrived in Belgrade for a 5-day state visit and interrupted their schedule to plunge into friendly crowds for handshakes and small talk. At one stop, a World War II memorial, Gorbachev surprised security men by leaving his armored limousine to meet with a cheering throng. Gorbachev later began talks with President Lazar Mojsov and Bosko Krunic, head of the Yugoslav Communist Party.

A strike by engineers has disrupted rail traffic in northwest Yugoslavia and delayed some international services, Tanjug news agency said Wednesday.

Workers in state restaurants in Communist Yugoslavia have threatened to go on strike to protest against economic reforms that have allowed the private catering sector to mushroom. "The current tax system stimulates private cafes, and their owners are really living it up," Rade Petkovic, director of the state-owned Belgrade restaurant Madera, was quoted as saying in the Belgrade newspaper Vecernje Novosti. "State-owned restaurants are severely handicapped by . . .

About 5,000 striking factory workers demonstrated angrily Friday outside the Federal Assembly (Parliament) to protest pay cuts, shouting "We want bread!" and calling on the government to resign. The workers from the Zmaj tractor factory outside Belgrade marched through the streets waving huge red banners and pictures of the late Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito. Onlookers cheered and clapped as workers accused the government of corruption and incompetence.

Authorities in Yugoslavia have started a public campaign against a fledgling Solidarity-like movement whose leaders have called on citizens to organize against what they see as repressive tactics by the government. In a series of speeches widely published in the national press, leaders of the ruling League of Communists described the group, known as the Solidarity Fund, as a budding opposition party that has no place in the country's complex political structure.

New strikes were staged in Yugoslavia in the wake of a controversial wage freeze that has triggered widespread labor unrest over the last two weeks. The official Tanjug news agency said strikes began at the Zele Veljkovic textile mill in Leskovac in southern Serbia and among construction and sewage workers in Croatia. At the same time, Tanjug reported renewed demands by company bosses in Croatia for amendments to the wages law enacted last month by Premier Branko Mikulic.

About 20,000 Yugoslavian workers in a mining and industrial complex went on strike, demanding a 40% pay increase, Belgrade Radio reported. If the strike continues at the Kolubara complex 35 miles, south of Belgrade, the operation of two plants essential for supplying power to the Yugoslav capital would be threatened, the state news agency Tanjug said. It is among several strikes throughout the country this month, with workers protesting low wages amid a 2,500% annual inflation rate.

About 20,000 Yugoslavian workers in a mining and industrial complex went on strike, demanding a 40% pay increase, Belgrade Radio reported. If the strike continues at the Kolubara complex 35 miles, south of Belgrade, the operation of two plants essential for supplying power to the Yugoslav capital would be threatened, the state news agency Tanjug said. It is among several strikes throughout the country this month, with workers protesting low wages amid a 2,500% annual inflation rate.

Hundreds of ethnic Albanian miners staged a strike for the second day in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo, but authorities succeeded in confining the unrest to one large enterprise. About 200 miners joined supervisors and technical staff in refusing to work at the Trepca lead and zinc mines, scene of widespread Albanian nationalist protests last November and February.

Troops and tanks moved into Kosovo province Monday, while ethnic Albanian miners ended their eight-day sit-in deep in a mine shaft after three provincial Communist party leaders resigned as the strikers demanded. However, the miners said they would not work until their other demands were met, including the abandonment of planned constitutional changes that would give the Serbian republic--one of six republics within Yugoslavia--more control over the autonomous province of Kosovo.

About 40,000 ethnic Albanians in the republic of Serbia refused to work on Friday in support of striking miners protesting ethnic discrimination and demanding the resignation of a provincial Communist Party chief, state-run media said. Yugoslav Communist Party leader Stipe Suvar spent three hours 3,000 feet underground in a futile meeting with strikers at the Trepca lead, zinc and silver mine in the autonomous Kosovo province.

The government announced plans Friday to ease an unpopular austerity program, three days before the leadership meets to consider widespread demands for resignations in its leadership. Deputy Premier Janez Zemljaric said Yugoslavia will import $600 million in emergency staples--triple the amount announced Oct. 8 by the government--to ease the worst economic crisis in the country in four decades.