Yugoslav Govt credibility at stake

Press, 20 November 1987, Page 10

Yugoslav Govt credibility at stake

NZPA-Reuter Belgrade The Yugoslav Government risked losing credibility after thousands of workers took to streets and forced it to retreat on a new pay and prices freeze, Western diplomats said.

Last week-end, after Parliament endorsed the programme of the Prime Minister, Branko Mikulic, to combat 135 per cent inflation, he froze wages and prices until the end of June next year, after allowing up to 70 per cent “corrective” price increases on many essential items.

In an angry reaction, about 5000 steel workers in Skopje, capital of Yugoslavia’s poorest republic, Macedonia, on Tuesday marched on regional Parliament demanding double pay. They settled for a 50 per cent across the board rise.

About 1000 Skopje aluminium workers followed suit and won a 71 per cent wage increase on Wednesday, the state news agency Tanjug said. "These pay rises in Ma-

cedonia violate Yugoslav laws on wages. If the authorities agreed to rises then they are breaking the laws themselves,” a senior economist in a Western embassy said. “If that is the case, you can kiss good-bye to laws in Yugoslavia.” Tanjug said on Wednesday that there have been at least 12 strikes in Macedonia and they were spreading to other republics, including prosperous Slovenia and Croatia. Communist Yugoslavia, grappling with 5NZ32.2 billion foreign debt and falling living standards, was hit by a wave of strikes earlier this year, but the Skopje workers were the first to take to the street to voice their discontent “I have never heard before of such mass street protests by workers in Yugoslavia since Communists came to power in 1945,” another Western diplomat said. “The authorities in Macedonia were obviously too scared to contend with them when they agreed to pay rises,” he said.