Chamorro May Face Wider Strike

Striking public workers threatened Saturday to extend their walkout nationwide, aggravating the first major crisis of President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro’s 2 1/2-week-old government.

Workers from a union representing about 40,000 government employees, mostly supporters of the opposition Sandinista National Liberation Front, had walked off the job Thursday to press demands for a 200% wage increase and the reinstatement of the civil service law that protects public workers.

Union workers accuse Chamorro of suspending the law so that her government can carry out massive layoffs.

Lucio Jimenez, general secretary of the Sandinista Workers Union, warned Saturday that the strike “could be extended to a national level. We are defending our revolutionary conquests.”

However, Labor Minister Francisco Rosales threatened to impose emergency law if the workers continue to strike.

Chamorro’s government has devalued the Nicaraguan currency, the cordoba, four times since taking office April 25, and announced increases in utility rates. She says her government inherited from the leftist Sandinistas “a completely ransacked country, in bankruptcy, and it is our responsibility to carry it forward.”