TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/101689/10168900.045

Text File | 1990-09-19 | 4KB | 58 lines

WORLD, Page 44

SOVIET UNION

In the School of Democracy

Legislators learn about compromise in dealing with strikes

By Ann Blackman/MOSCOW

    This winter may be bleaker than usual in the U.S.S.R. With cold
weather fast approaching and an increasingly militant labor force
threatening to paralyze the transportation system, supplies of food
and fuel could be in jeopardy. Soviet leaders reacted with
old-style authority by proposing sweeping emergency measures: a ban
on all strikes for 15 months and deployment of troops to break an
Azerbaijani blockade of Armenia. But after a dramatic all-night
debate, legislators in the Supreme Soviet did what not so long ago
was unthinkable. They rebuffed the strike proposal as
"unconstitutional" and voted instead to put strict limits only on
work stoppages that affect critical industries. Said Leningrad
Deputy Anatoli Sobchak, a reformist: "We just spent a couple days
in the school of democracy. And all the talk led somewhere."

    For Soviet lawmakers, it was a unique lesson in the art of
compromise. President Mikhail Gorbachev, who supported the
emergency-powers proposal, had opened the session with an emotional
address, telling the legislature that work stoppages are "holding
our reforms by the throat." What followed was an often fiery,
unprecedented debate as politicians clashed over the need for such
draconian measures. At one point, Gorbachev yelled at the unruly
Deputies, "We're not in a stadium! We're in the Supreme Soviet!"

    Gorbachev's concern over labor unrest is well grounded. Since
last July, when Soviet coal miners went on a three-week strike to
protest their squalid living conditions and the government caved
in to their demands, long-suffering Soviet workers have found work
stoppages a potent weapon. So have restive national groups. For
more than a month, railways have been blocked between the tiny
Caucasus republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia, which are battling
for control of the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. The
blockade has severely curtailed supplies of food, medicine and
gasoline in Armenia. Last week coal miners in the Ukrainian town
of Chervonograd held a brief warning strike to demand immediate
implementation of government pledges to raise wages and improve
conditions. When one Minister called for postponing the expensive
concessions, Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov rejected the proposal.
"The government must keep its word," he said. Soviet legislators
are concerned that if such strikes continue or spread, they could
push the shaky Soviet economy to total collapse.

    Despite Gorbachev's original inclination to take quick and
drastic action, he hesitated to go as far as some had demanded, and
initiated the bargaining session that sharply reduced the scope of
the emergency plan. After the vote, Gorbachev seemed to recognize
that he had presided over a new chapter in Soviet history. "I think
we've done the right thing," he said. Even the more moderate
measures may help cool the rash of strikes. More important, one of
Gorbachev's crucial reforms seemed to be working: an elected
legislature had debated and bargained its way to a sensible
compromise.  Just how much respite the decision will bring the
Soviet Union's battered economy is another matter. The rail
blockade of Armenia was broken last week when Soviet troops
escorted in shipments of food, fuel and other vital supplies. But
leaders of the Popular Front in Azerbaijan threatened a general
strike if the military tries to take over the railways.