Coal Chief Sent to Miner Leagues
MOSCOW — In a telling example of Soviet politics, perestroika- style, a shift foreman at a mine in the far north beat out the nation’s coal minister to win election to the Russian Republic’s Parliament.
The Tass news agency said that Viktor Yakovlev, a worker at the Komsomolskaya mine in Vorkuta, received 501 more votes in Sunday’s run-off balloting than Mikhail I. Shchadov, theoretically his boss as chief of the Coal Ministry in Moscow. The margin was thin as more than 110,000 voters cast ballots.
Vorkuta was shaken by strikes last year as miners demanded economic independence, better housing, increased pay for hazardous work and benefits for working and living north of the Arctic Circle. Tass said some demands of the miners have since been fulfilled, including salary increases for night work and the same day off at all mines.
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