P.M. BRIEFING : E. German City Employees Strike
About 45,000 municipal workers in at least 10 East German cities walked off their jobs for a few hours today in warning strikes for better wages and job security in a united Germany.
Nurses, secretaries, bus drivers, garbage haulers and others stopped working for up to two hours, and demonstrations and rallies were held in a number of cities. There are about 1.6 million municipal workers in East Germany.
The workers are demanding job protection and pay increases to compensate for higher prices that have resulted from the economic merger of the two Germanys on July 1. They also demand that East German income taxes not be immediately raised to West German levels.
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