Landmark for E. German Workers : Europe: The Communist nation’s first independent trade union shows that the wave of dissent has reached the factory floor.

Workers in an East Berlin factory on Monday announced the formation of the country’s first independent trade union.

Hours later, more than 100,000 East Germans demonstrated in Leipzig, calling on the new government to institute political and economic reforms. It was the first big demonstration since Egon Krenz took over last Wednesday as East Germany’s Communist leader.

A spokesman for workers at the Wilhelm Pieck engineering and electronics plant in Teltow, on the outskirts of East Berlin, said many were leaving the official East German labor movement and joining the independent union, called Reform. He gave no number but said some entire departments had made the move.

There was no comment from the government. Announcement of the formation of an independent union was the first sign that the present wave of dissent, the worst since the workers’ uprising of 1953, had gone beyond students and intellectual leaders to the factory floor.

For many, it recalled the beginnings of Solidarity, the independent trade union in Poland. Solidarity was outlawed soon after it was organized in 1980 but continued to struggle. Last summer, the Solidarity movement took over the government.

Ralf Boerger, a spokesman for the workers at the Teltow plant, said they were leaving the official labor federation because it “does not serve the interests of the majority of workers and does not enjoy the confidence of the workers.”

He quoted from a statement that calls on the government to grant all workers the right to strike and the right to demonstrate, to guarantee freedom of the press, to remove all restrictions on foreign travel and to end official privileges.

He said the statement has been handed out at factories all across the country through an opposition group called the Social Democratic Party.

The new union, the statement said, “has obligations only to its own members and will not subordinate itself to the decisions of political parties or other organizations.”

“In today’s critical situation,” it went on, “we appeal to all colleagues in our enterprise and all workers in our republic to take on the responsibility for our common future.”

The Reform announcement came on the heels of a statment by labor official Harry Tisch, a member of the Politburo, who was quoted Monday in the union newspaper Tribuene as saying that trade unions must show more independence and must stop working so closely with management and the Communist Party.

“It’s better,” he said, “if each union finds and represents its own position.”

In Leipzig, as occurred at a similar turnout last Monday night, police and security forces were present but made no attempt to interfere with the peaceful demonstration.

East Germans also demonstrated in other cities Monday. In nearby Halle, more than 10,000 marched in a peaceful demonstration for economic and political reform. They shouted “Gorby! Gorby!”--referring to Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and the reforms he has introduced in the Soviet Union.

In the northwestern city of Schwerin, several thousand people were reported to have attended an organized meeting to discuss with Communist officials such problems as shortages of consumer goods.

Here in East Berlin, several thousand gathered at the Gethsemane church to support a candlelight vigil that has been going on around the clock in behalf of people arrested in previous Leipzig demonstrations.

Protestant Church sources said that Monday night’s turnout in Leipzig was as large or larger than last week’s. On that occasion, an estimated 100,000 to 120,000 marched to protest the restrictive policies of Erich Honecker, the hard-line leader who resigned under pressure two days later.

Monday’s demonstrators called out, “Egon, what about free elections?”

Diplomatic sources said the Leipzig march indicated that Krenz and his regime will have to move quickly to satisfy the pent-up frustrations of East Germans. One observed, “His police can’t arrest 120,000 people for marching peacefully.”

The Leipzig march started, as has become customary in recent weeks, in Karl Marx Platz after Monday night church services. The demonstrators merged and marched 10 abreast along the ring road that surrounds the city center, some carrying banners urging “Power to New Forum,” a reference to the largest opposition group. New Forum has signed up more than 26,000 followers in the past few weeks.

Monday’s developments suggested to many analysts in Berlin that Krenz’s apparent effort to portray his new regime as more responsive to popular wishes has yet to win any broad acceptance.

“He has to do more than talk about reform,” a diplomat with long experience here said. “He has to do something.”