1.
GVS: People in downtown streets of Buenos Aires. (THREE SHOTS)
0.10

2.
SV ZOOM IN: Newspaper headlines
0.14

3.
SV & GV: Underground entrances closed, gates locked. (THREE SHOTS)
0.34

4.
GV: Troops guarding subway entrances. (THREE SHOTS)
0.40

5.
GV: People queuing at bus stop.
0.43

6.
CU & SV: People reading newspapers. (FOUR SHOTS)
0.53

7.
SV & GV: Queues waiting at bus stops. (THREE SHOTS)
1.02

8.
SV: Passengers entering buses. (TWO SHOTS)
1.10

9.
GV PAN: Two crowded buses pass camera. (TWO SHOTS)
1.25



Initials JS/2235



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Transport workers in Buenos Aires have gone back to their jobs after more than a week of strikes, which had cripple??? the city's rail and subway system. They abandoned their pay strike after the State railway company announced it had begun sending out dismissal notices to staff who had refused to resume work. During the strikes, troops killed one man and saboteurs bombed railway tracks and a station.

SYNOPSIS: Transport stoppages provoked similar strikes in other State-owned sectors in Buenos Aires. The wave of labour unrest also spread to the provinces, despite state-of-siege regulations banning strikes. The transport workers demanded up to 80 percent rises in their minimum wage and were unhappy with a government package with a top rise of around 40 percent.

All is quiet now, but the Army announced that, on Wednesday (2 November), troops shot dead an unidentified man trying to incite railwaymen at Central Constitution station to go on strike. This followed bomb blasts wrecking rail lines and part of a suburban station.

As strikes grew among the 4,000 railway workers in Buenos Aires bus travelling became a growing agony. The strikes stopped services on five of the six suburban rail lines and about half the underground grid.

Rail workers also struck in industrial cities of Rosario and Santa Fe.

Some non-railways workers eased their commuting problems by going on wildcat strike themselves in state-run banks and oil company offices. And workers in hospitals, post offices, and shops pressed demands for increase in their earnings, which average around 60 U.S dollars a month - in an economy with 150 percent a year inflation.