Gorbachev Offer Rejected as Coal Strike Continues

Despite President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s offer to double their wages, most Soviet coal miners refused to return to work Monday and continued to insist on his resignation.

The five-week-old walkout by an estimated 300,000 of the nation’s 1.2 million coal miners has been joined in recent days by thousands of workers at more than 50 factories across the country, and general strikes are threatened in the republics of Georgia and Byelorussia.

The growing labor unrest, exacerbated by drastic consumer price increases, has the potential to further cripple the Soviet economy.

Strike leaders across the country said they are rejecting the government’s offer because the wage increases would quickly be swallowed up by inflation. The prices of most consumer items, including food and clothing, doubled and tripled on April 2.

“They say they’re making a big concession to us, but it’s the kind of concession that won’t mean anything at all, I am absolutely sure, in two or three months,” said Vitaly Dubrov, a miner in the Arctic city of Vorkuta.

The Coordinating Council of Strike Committees, meeting in Moscow, called Monday for a national indexing system to boost the wages of all workers to compensate for inflation, said Alexander Sergeyev, vice president of the Independent Union of Miners.

Sergeyev said the council also reiterated its four main political demands: Gorbachev’s resignation; dissolution of the Communist-dominated Congress of People’s Deputies; resignation of the entire Cabinet of Ministers, and transfer of power to a Federation Council made up of representatives of the 15 Soviet republics.