RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol 2, No. 184, Part I, 23 September 1998 RUSSIAN UNEMPLOYMENT INCREASING. Russia's financial crisis is already impacting on the labor market, according to "Kommersant-Daily" on 22 September. The newspaper predicts that between 500,000 and 1 million people across the country will lose their jobs. The number of people applying to Moscow employment services has grown by 30 percent, compared with September 1997. The demand for specialists in Moscow has fallen by 30-40 percent, and some 30,000 vacancies have been cut. Most job openings in Moscow are for manual labor or junior medical personnel, and 40 percent of those jobs pay no more than 900 rubles. The newspaper predicts that over the next few months, the number of registered unemployed in Moscow may rise to 55,000, while the total number of unemployed could be two or three times higher. LF COMMUNISTS OUT OF TOUCH WITH WORKERS. According to a resolution passed by the Communist Party's recent Central Committee Plenum and published in "Sovetskaya Rossiya" on 22 September, labor protests are growing but the Communist Party does not have firm control over the movement. The resolution cites a '"fivefold increase" in the number of striking enterprises since the beginning of 1998 but notes that many Communist Party raion and city organizations have "little influence" on local labor collectives. Also included in the resolution is the Central Committee decree that the council of the Communist Party's Duma faction should set up public tribunals throughout the Russian Federation "to bring charges against Boris Yeltsin for the acts he has committed against the people." JAC -- Gregory Schwartz Department of Political Science York University 4700 Keele St. Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3 Canada Tel: (416) 736-5265 Fax: (416) 736-5686 Web: http://www.yorku.ca/dept/polisci
