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- <text id=89TT1276>
- <title>
- May 15, 1989: World Notes:Soviet Union
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- May 15, 1989 Waiting For Washington
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 51
- World Notes
- SOVIET UNION
- Workers of the World: Strike!
- </hdr><body>
- <p> According to Marxist-Leninist dogma, Soviet workers have no
- reason to strike because they live in a proletarian paradise.
- That has not, however, stopped the working masses in the world's
- oldest socialist state from occasionally walking out.
- </p>
- <p> Last week Moscow decided to drop the ideological baggage
- and proposed a new law that for the first time would allow the
- country's normally docile labor unions, to which more than 90%
- of all Soviet workers belong, the right to strike. The law is
- expected to be enacted later this year.
- </p>
- <p> The government's action is partly a result of increased
- work disruptions under Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika. Last
- year alone brought at least 15 strikes around the country
- involving factory workers, miners, bus drivers and carpet
- weavers. Last month even the Leningrad police walked off the
- beat for 24 hours, demanding better working conditions.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-