WORLD

Perestroika and the

“Soviet workers: The Soviet w atmosphere and Is slowly, ilk motion.

ass has been arou e an unlimbering giant, swinging itself into

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sed by the new

Fred Weir

MOSCOW -- Until recently per- estroika, the Soviet restructuring, has seemed largely a phenomenon that was unfolding through rapid changes in the intellectual, cultural and political environment of Soviet society. But it is now beginning to reach down deeper, and laws coming into effect at the start of 1988 man- date sweeping and fundamental changes in the very production rela- tions that have governed the Soviet economy for more than half a cen- tury. Already there are signs that the vast -- and until now quiescent -- Soviet working class has been aroused by the new atmosphere and is slowly, like an unlimbering giant, swinging itself into motion.

One could not ask for a sharper or clearer illustration of this than that provided by a relatively trivial labour dispute that erupted in the city of Yaroslavl, some 300 miles north of Moscow, in mid-December, and for one brief moment threatened to run out of control. What happened, and how it was dealt with will, in all like- lihood, serveas a pattern for events to come and it shows, in high profile, both the potential and the perils that attend the entry of the working class, notas a slogan invoked by others, but as a real, living force in the per- estroika drive.

The Autodisel Production Asso- ciation in Yaroslavl is a huge con-

From Moscow

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cern, made up of numerous intercon- nected factories, foundries and work- shops, that employs almost 40,000 people. It produces diesel engines, which it supplies to some 300 other important enterprises in the USSR. It’s strategic position in the Soviet economy, and the scale of its produc- tion, have put it among the first major enterprises to be placed on the hozraschot system of full cost-ac- counting and self-management.

Enter the working class

When the planned production tar- gets for 1988 had been worked out, management, headed by the plant’s director, Vitaly Doletsky, drew up a work timetable for the coming year. Every employee in the plant works a basic weekly shift of 41 hours. But in order to accommodate the hectic pro- duction schedule, breakdowns, dis- ruptions in supply, and so on, man- agement has always preferred to di- vide the time up, shortening the regu- lar working days and adding a number of working Saturdays -- the workers call them ‘Dirty Saturdays’’-- in the year. This insures management for those frenetic moments, usually at the end of each month, when a major effort has to be made to meet planned production quotas (the workers call it “*storming the plan’’).

In 1986 there were 21 ‘‘Dirty Sat-

urdays’* at the Yaroslav] works; in 1987 there were 19 of them. Management’s projected timetable for 1988 envisaged 15 working Satur- days.

“Dirty Saturdays”’

In accordance with all the rules,

management submitted its proposed”

timetable for 1988 to the plant’s trade union committee which, without much discussion or probing the feel- ing on the shop floor, approved it. As

the newspaper Sotsialisticheskaya later pointed out, there”

Indusria seemed no reason for anybody to expect any objections as ‘‘in the past the timetable used to be endorsed as Management considered neces-

sary”’.

However, when the new timetable | was announced in the plant’s 600 dif- ~

ferent sections, work units and de-

partments, something totally unfore-—

seen happened. It ran into stiff opposition.

A workers’ protest

In small section meetings workers

took the floor to argue against the practice of working Saturdays, and _ the trade union committee received a _ barrage of urgent and angry letters. Workers were obviously beginning to © Say openly things they had only

thought about in the past.

““Why should we give our Satur- —

days to patch up gaping holes in the organization of production?’’, one worker told TASS reporters. ‘‘We are sick and tired of idleness during the week and frenzy on the week- end’’.

INTERNATIONAL FOCUS

Tom Morris

The emperor

has clothes

Well, it figures.

It pays to have 35 pairs of Gucci loafers in your closet. It pays to spend more on clothing in one year than the average Canadian family spends on food.

Because of his attention to wardrobe detail. and a rich man’s budget, Brian Mulroney has finally made the Big Time.

Never mind your Nobel Prize for peace, literature, science, medicine or the like. Forget about public recognition for music or art.

Mulroney has scaled the real heights.

He’s joined with such lumi-

naries as Arnold Schwarzenegger -

and Ronald Reagan as one of the world’s Best Dressed Men.

The news will certainly be E hailed in Africa, Latin America and Asia where 3,000 children under five die each hour from hun- ger and disease.

It should go over big on the freezing streets of any Canadian city where people are meeting the winter by lining up for shelter and food handouts, some sleeping on heating grates and under -stair- wells. With these scenes, does this planet need one more strutting peacock? -

Some say that clothes make the man.

In Mulroney’s case it must be true because little else is evident.

Another name for murder

Our well-dressed leader, has told the world Israel is ‘‘acting with re- straint’ in the occupied Arab terri- tories.

Some 24 young Palestinians have been shot dead in the past three weeks. More than 1,000 arrested; some to be deported. Young girls

m

and boys are being beaten with clubs and lashed with whips. They are being tortured while in custody and tied to the front of Israeli army ve- hicles.

Palestinian homes are being raided, people dragged out of their beds in front of terrified children. Troops saturate the streets with tear gas and armour.

Every nation looks on in revul- sion; the UN Security Council con- demns the deportations.

And what ofour simple Boy from Baie Comeau?

What does our coiffured Prime Minister have to say?

Se

og

Palestinian women protesting arrests, depo

He speaks of ‘‘restraint’’. He says Israel is in ‘‘a difficult posi- tion’’. He purrs and coos and bats his eyelids.

He should spend a few hours tied to the front of an Israeli truck or be forced to lie face down for 24 hours and beaten every time he moves.

He should watch his sons de- ported for fighting for their dignity

racks, these realities are another world.

stand up for the brave Palestinian people, Mulroney at least should have the decency to keep quiet.

True daughter of the Empire

If he can’t find the honesty to

Since this seems a week to salute

ations and terror raids by Israeli occupying troops.

and their people.

He should see his wife shot to death in the yard of her home by a rampaging occupying army.

For a man preoccupied with walk-in closets and meters of shoe

Prime Ministers, I suppose we should give a tip of the hat to Maggie Thatcher for achieving the status as the longest serving (reigning?) Brit- ish Prime Minister in this century.

Acknowledging this fact last weekend, Thatcher said she had turned Britain around economically since her right-wing economic poli- cies were introduced in 1979,

Well, she’s turned part of Britain around.

Like her pal Reagan, Thatcher has actually made the rich richerand the poor poorer, widening the gap between the haves and have-nots.

Like the motley old tion on the crown, she’s also a quaint anachro- nism of past Empire glories: steam- ing off to the Falklands, defending apartheid and sinking billions into Britain’s military clout -- not to

speak of her not-so-benign pursuit ~

of Imperial interests in Northern Ireland.

She’s a true daughter of England’s upper classes.

8 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 13, 1988