According to the Federation of Independent Trade Unions, which claims to represent 60 million workers, protests were held in 58 regions around Russia on Saturday.
Interfax reported that 5, 000 to 10, 000 people attended demonstrations in Vladivostok and the Kuzbass, while about 50, 000 people rallied in Krasnodar.
Igor Klochkov, the Union's president, said in an interview with The Moscow Times that he met President Boris Yeltsin on Thursday and gave him an ultimatum to take action to slow down reforms within a month or face a general strike.
"Our main demands are to change economic reforms to increase production", Klochkov said. "Our economy is based on selling and buying, but factories are closing and the cost of goods is rising. People are going to be on the streets".
Talks between Yeltsin and the union are to begin on Oct. 27. The union will call for a general nationwide strike if its demands -- including increasing state subsidies to factories, raising the minimum wage and stabilizing price hikes -- are not met a month from then, Klochkov said.
The union is also stepping up its political alliance with the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, the influential lobby of enterprise directors headed by Arkady Volsky.
Klochkov said his union had set up a "mutual fund" in conjuntction with Volsky's lobby, though he refused to reveal how much was in the fund.
An alliance of workers, headed by Klochkov, and their bosses led by Volsky, may sound unusual. But both have the same goal: to retain centralized controls over industry and to continue subsidies for inefficient state factories which otherwise would close.
A union of workers and factory directors would also be better able to challenge the government, according to a Western diplomat who specializes in the labor field.
Some analysts are skeptical of the Federation's ability to mobilize mass strikes. But they also point to last spring, when the union succeeded in pressuring the government to raise wages through a series of health care, transportation and education strikes.
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