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Pay Us Our Wages! Support Russian Workers' Campaign Against The Scandal of Unpaid Wages
Strikes and Protests - February 1999
Continual action across Russia - Trade Union Official murdered February 1999
Strikes, hunger strikes, workplace occupations and demonstrations continually breakout across the country. They are often spontaneous. Miners are again at the forefront of action although they have now been joined by teachers whose massive show of strength in a nationwide day industrial action on 27-29 January, was preceded by widespread action across the country’s classrooms that has subsequently continued in many regions.
By early February 1999 millions of Russians were struggling to get through a bleak winter of soaring food prices, fuel shortages and bitter cold. The combination of a crippling financial crisis, which led to job losses and inflation, and an early, cold winter has left many families in real need. Many workers continue to be plagued by massive delays in wage payments.
The Russian Red Cross has said that around 73 million people out of a population of 147 million are living in poverty. Workers and their trade unions continue to battle against the scandal of unpaid wages Russian workers action has not been limited to their own country. With seamen and fisherman often subject to wage delays they have struck from Aberdeen in Scotland to New Zealand with the latest case that of Russian fishermen stranded in Norway. In Japan the Russian crew of the timber-carrying ship Svetlana at the Japanese port of Kinuura are reported to have been on strike for more than four months. he ship belongs to the Linkwest company, registered in the Honduras Offshore Area. The river-sea ship is o- owned by the Amur shipping company. At the end of November last year, the Svetlana with a crew of 16 arrived at Kinuura with a cargo of scrap metal. The seamen are still waiting for their wages. There have been numerous examples of distraught workers taking management or regional government officials hostage in support of their demands for wages. Often this has been completely non-violent but there has also been violence and death.
In Moscow an unpaid worker is accused of beating the director and foreman of his workplace to death with a cut-off piece of reinforcing bar when his demands for wages were refused and Gennadiy Borisov, chairman of the ground services workers’ trade union of Vnukovo Airlines, was murdered n circumstances that suggest it was in retaliation for his uncompromising stand in support of his members. he deprivation and despair felt by many workers has led to suicides and a teacher recently died shortly after ending a hunger strike. The following is a by no means complete listing of strikes and protests throughout Russia since the beginning of 1999. It is by no means comprehensive or complete.
12 February 99 - MINERS GO ON HUNGER STRIKE IN KOMI OVER UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION OF PROFITS. Nine miners at he Intinskaya mine in the Republic of Komi began a hunger strike in protest against the current system of distributing profits at the Intaugol joint-stock company, Fanil Kalimullin, the chairman of the mine’s trade union committee, has said. According to Kalimullin, there will be a secret ballot at the Intinskaya mine, February 12, to find out what miners think of the possibility of holding a large-scale protest action. The total volume of wage debt owed to Intinskaya miners is over R30m.
6 February 99 - MORE MINERS IN ORKUTA JOIN HUNGER STRIKE OVER WAGE ARREARS. The workforce of the Oktyabrskaya mine in Vorkuta continued their industrial action into the sixth day. Several more miners joined the hunger strike on February bringing the number of hunger strikers, who remain underground, to eight people. The miners are demanding that the administration clear their wage debt in full. Losses to the value of about R1m are reportedly sustained each day that the Oktyabrskaya mine stays idle.
4 February 99 - OVER 70 MINERS TAGE SIT-IN IN NORTHERN RUSSIAN PIT. Marked the third day of the strike by miners at Vorkuta’s ktyabrskaya mine, who are demanding the full payment of wage debts which have been building up since February 1998 and now stand at R39m. Miners from two mining sectors refused to come to the surface the previous day and one of them began a hunger strike. According to reports, several more miners joined the hunger strike. Mine director Valeriy Baranov criticized the action and claimed that at the end of January miners ere given an advance of R500 each, and on the first day of February, they were given R4,000 each towards he payment of months-old wage debts. The director-general of the Vorkutaugol joint stock society, Viktor Ekgardt, admitted that wage debts at the Oktyabrskaya mine had reached over R39m.
4 February 99 - RUSSIA: ITF SUPPORTS DOCKERS AT KALININGRAD. SOME 180 Russian waterfront trade unionists have won International Transport Workers’ Federation backing for their reinstatement campaign at the port of aliningrad. Members of the ITF-affiliated Dockers’ Union of Russia have been discriminated against by their employers following a strike in October 1997. Following the dispute, the port took the union to court, in an unsuccessful attempt to have the action declared illegal. According to the union, members were subsequently separated from non-members, and put in union-only gangs which were given the worst. The union also asserts hat in April and May last year, members were told they had failed safety tests and were sacked. However, employment would be restored if they renounced union membership. In September, the port introduced new working practices which saw union members reduced to part-time employment. More details and a request for solidarity are at: http://www.itf.org.uk/PRESS/kaliningrad.html
4 February 99 - MINERS STRIKE ENDS Miners ended their strikes at the Berezovskaya mine in the uzbass coal-mining area after the negotiations with mine executives.
2 February 99 - MINERS IN UZBASS ROTEST AGAINST NON-PAYMENT OF WAGES. Over 60 miners of the “Beryozovskaya” coal mine f he “Severokuzbassugol” company refused to leave underground coal-faces at the beginning of a protest against a six-month delay in wage payments. According to a representative of the company, all sinking works and coal mining have been stopped. The leadership of the “Severokuzbassugol” company has been reported as conducting talks with miners but no agreement has yet been reached.
2 February 99 - RUSSIAN FISHERMEN STRANDED IN NORWAY GO ON HUNGER STRIKE. Eighteen Russian fishermen on a trawler detained in the Norwegian port of Kristiansund have gone on hunger strike to demand payment of heir wages. The fishermen said in a fax to the Russian embassy in Norway that the trawler, the Poseydon, had docked in Kristiansund for repairs at the end of a fishing trip but although its catch had been sold no money ad been transferred to pay the crew’s wages. The vessel was then forbidden to leave the port because of the failure of the trawler’s owner, the Saproinzhstroy company, to pay the money it owed a Portuguese firm. No representatives from Saproinzhstroy have visited the vessel, and the payment of wages and the departure of he crew have repeatedly been postponed, the fishermen said. “Owing to what has happened, the crew no longer trust the vessel’s owner. It will be almost impossible to get the money we have earned when we return o Murmansk,” ITAR-TASS quoted the fishermen as saying. In a similar incident last July, the crew of the Russian freezer trawler Mys Frunze were trapped in the Norwegian port of Horten owing to the failure of the vessel's’s owner to pay the fishermen’s wages, the agency added.
1 February 99 - VNUKOVO AIRLINES TAFF PROTEST AT TRADE UNION LEADER’S MURDER. The killing of a trade union leader is being investigated in Moscow. Although so far the investigators have kept secret the details of how Gennadiy orisov, chairman of the ground services workers’ trade union of Vnukovo Airlines, was killed in Moscow. orisov was killed on the night of 27 January as he was approaching the apartment block in Garibaldi Street here he lived. In the entrance an unidentified person stabbed the trade union activist 12 times. Borisov, who as elected head of the trade union last September, was effectively the main spokesman for Vnukovo Airlines staff. Press reports state that trade union meetings have witnessed angry words to the effect that the company management is only thinking about making profit without spending a kopeck on upgrading the Vnukovo Airlines fleet. Of more than 50 aircraft, only six are operational. The rest are hulks of metal that can hardly fly. staff have not been paid salaries for between four and five months. Borisov’s colleagues believe that the management was waging a covert war against their leader. A Vnukovo Airlines employee, in press reports has claimed that during the picket of the management office on the night of the 14 January, the deputy director- general said: If you remove Borisov, we will find money to pay your wages. Further press reports outline how Borisov was due to meet a State Duma deputy this week in order to pass him some papers. Company staff claim that the papers contained information detailing abuses at Vnukovo Airlines that the trade unionist knew bout.
1 February 99 - TEACHERS CONTINUE STRIKE OVER WAGES IN RUSSIA’S ALTAY TERRITORY. The trade union of teachers in Altay Territory summed up the results of two protest actions held by teachers in the region: a local strike on 18 January and the nationwide strike on 27 January. ITAR- ASS interviewed the press secretary of the Territory’s branch of the trade union of teachers, Aleksandr Ivanov, ho aid that 542 schools in 54 towns and districts of the Territory took part in the strike on 18 January. A total of 5,000 teachers were on strike on that day. And almost 2,800 teachers said at the time that they were suspending work indefinitely. Over 9,300 teachers from 405 Altay schools took part in the nationwide strike of teachers on 27 January. Ivanov said that the teachers wanted to draw the attention of local officials to their catastrophic situation because of wage arrears. Instead of settling the problem, local officials just issued claiming statements about paying teachers regularly and reducing the amount of money owed to them. This is not true, Ivanov said. That is why 60 teachers from a village school in the town of Slavgorod and 643 teachers in the own of Rubtsovsk have been on strike for the past 15 days. Teachers in many other villages and towns of Altay Territory are prepared to go on protest again.
29 January 99 - TEACHERS TAKE HOSTAGES. RUSSIAN teachers who have not been paid for months took two city leaders hostage. The teachers, taking art in the second day of a three-day nationwide strike, barricaded a city district chief and his deputy in their offices in Volgograd. Strike leaders said the men would not be released until three months of back wages were aid to the teachers.
29 January 99 - THOUSANDS OF TEACHERS ON STRIKE OVER WAGE RREARS. Press reports stated that he number of educational establishments which took part in the two-day ll-Russian protest action was 8,269. Strikes and stoppages of up to three hours were the main forms of protest ver wage arrears. According to information received by the trade union of workers of education and culture from 57 constituent parts of the Russian Federation, staff in more than 6,000 educational establishments went n strike and teachers in another 2,000 suspended work temporarily. Teachers refused food at School Number 0 in Ulyanovsk, a city on the Volga river where teacher Alexander Motorin became a symbol of the human cost of Russia’s debt crisis when he died in December after a 10-day hunger strike. Full report available here.
28 January 99 - NAGORNAYA MINE Coal production at the Nagornaya mine in Perm Region was set to resume on February 1. Miners from the only coal-producing enterprise of the Kizelovsky coal basin went on strike on January 11 demanding the payment of back wages.
28 January 99 - BORODINSKY MINE Meanwhile workers of the Borodinsky coal pit decided to dissolve their strike committee.Back wages and allowances had been paid in full to workers of the pit. The Borodinsky pit is reportedly the largest debtor to he budgets of all levels and bankruptcy proceedings may be started against it at any moment.
25 January 99 - RIMORYE MEDICS TO DELARE STRIKE OVER WAGE DEBTS. Doctors of the Chuguev district hospital, Primorye Region, decided to declare a strike on January 30. Some 80 staff members of the district polyclinic and the children’s health centre agreed to take part in it. They are going to protest against eight- month age arrears, Galina Yermoshina, head of the regional branch of the trade union of public health workers, told ass. According to Ms.Yermoshina, the administration of the Primorye Region allocated 15 million roubles for he payment of wage debts to public health workers, but that sum will be enough only for the payment of wage debts for one month. A total wage debt still amounts to 200 million roubles.
22 January 99 - AUTHORITIES SEEK TO SPLIT UP KRONSHTADT YARD. The St Petersburg administration has asked he Economics Ministry to restructure the Kronshtadt naval yard (KNY). The yard’s workforce held two strikes in 1998, demanding the payment of wage arrears which, by the autumn, had reached R16m. In November work was suspended for three weeks. Some wage arrears were paid however, the yard remains on strike alert. The chairman of the KNY trade union committee, Vladimir Galchenko, does not rule out the possibility that the November strike, which was only suspended, could be resumed without warning at any moment if the management does not stick to the timetable for paying the workforce.
21 January 99 - SIBERIAN MINERS CARRY HOME 18 MONTHS’ WORTH OF BACK PAY IN BAGS. Radio reports from Kemerovo said that some miners there had at last been paid their wages for the last 18 months. They needed bags to carry all that money home. Workers at the Salair mining plant were said to be queuing at the cashier’s desk with plastic and cloth bags. Without them, they would not be able to carry home the piles of banknotes. Many of the workers have never had so much money in their hands. Now they are being paid all at once for an 18-month period, getting thus half of the entire debt. The management of the plant promised to give them the other half of the money they are owed in February. According to managers of the only enterprise n town, the Salair mining plant, “At last, our product has started to sell. Our output for a number of years has been piling up. Now we have moved some of the product and have started to pay salaries.” The product was old directly to Kazakhstan at cost price and the buyers immediately paid cash. The revenue also allowed the payment of , child allowances and debts to the local budget and pension fund were paid as well. And workers ere reported to have been paid 20 per cent extra to partly compensate for the effects of inflation.
21 January 9 - RUSSIAN TEACHERS TO HOLD NATIONWIDE STRIKE ON 27- 29 JANUARY. Russian teachers re to stage nationwide industrial action on 27-29 January, according to ITAR-TASS news agency which voted hat the government now owes them over R16.5bn in wage arrears. Their union said that teachers would be free to decide locally whether to opt for all-out strike or protest action on a smaller scale. The agency predicted hat over 360,000 teachers would take part all over the country.
20 January 99 - ABOUT 1,000 TEACHERS GO ON “INDEFINITE STRIKE” IN KURSK REGION. Teachers from seven schools in Russia’s Kursk region on 11 January went on indefinite strike over their wages which they have not seen for five months. hey ere joined by teachers from six schools in the Lgovskiy District, which brought the number of striking teachers to about 1,000. Besides, teachers of the Oktyabrskiy District had also started collecting signatures to recall the Regional Duma chairman, Viktor Chernykh, who stood for election in that District but has not met is electors for over six months and they accused him of not reacting to the deplorable situation facing local educational workers. They also demanded that the local Duma pass a law on the order of recalling deputies.
20 January 99 - MINERS OF CHELYABINSK REGION READY FOR ACTS OF PROTEST URAL-PRESS, reported that Miners of the Korkinsky open cast mine in Chelyabinsk Region were ready for acts of protest, if heir wage debts are not paid, quoting Alexander Neustroyev, the local trade union committee leader.
19 January 99 - DIRECTOR, FOREMAN MURDERED FOR NOT PAYING WAGES. A double murder has been reported over unpaid wages. The Moscow Criminal Investigation Department personnel and their colleagues from the city’s Southern District apprehended a 26-year-old worker, who is accused of in a quarrel over unpaid wages, beating the director and foreman of his workplace to death with a cut-off piece of reinforcing bar. Criminal proceedings have been instituted.
19 January 99 - DIRECTOR HELD HOSTAGE T MOLYBDENUM PLANT IN CHITA REGION. Talks between workers of the Zhirekenskiy molibden Zhireken molybdenum] joint-stock company and the administration of the enterprise started in the Chita region of East Siberia as they held their director generalhostage for a third day. The workers were demanding hat the financial activity of the enterprise and its director be checked since the workforce was last paid its ages in December 1997.
19 January 99 - TEACHERS BEGIN PROTESTS AGAINST WAGE DELAYS N REPUBLIC OF ALTAY. A massive series of protest actions of teachers, indignant over delays with the payment of wages, began in Altay on 18 January. Some 8,000 teachers from 300 schools in 48 cities of the territory took part. The teachers chose various forms of protest, including reduced classes, the suspension of work for one day or for an indefinite period of time, or even a collective hunger strike declared by 13 teachers f Secondary School No 2 in the city of Zarinsk, a spokesman for the territorial committee of the trade union f public education and scientific workers told TASS. According to the head of the territorial committee of the trade union, Leonid Ivanovskiy, the government’s demands on using money transfers as a matter of priority or the payment of two monthly wages in December and early in January, as well as on drawing up the schedule for the payment of wage debts, “are being openly ignored by the territorial administration”. The teachers are especially indignant over the fact that, in the current extremely difficult situation, “officials from he public education steering bodies do not forget about their own needs - they receive wages and bonuses on time”.
15 January 99 - OVER 100,000 TEACHERS ON STRIKE OVER WAGE ARREARS. More than ,000 educational establishments in Russia had not yet started the new term after the winter break. According o Interfax news agency, almost 100,000 teachers were on strike demanding payment of wage arrears. The situation was only a prelude to an all-Russian protest action planned by the trade union of education workers or 27 January. Reports from Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk described “forced” winter holidays continuing in 4 out of 30 rural Districts. Five hundred teachers’collectives - more than 12,000 teachers - were refusing to give lessons until they were paid delayed wages – or at least part of them. The Novosibirsk Region administration admitted that he debt to the budget-financed sector as a whole amounted to R550m, and 200m f it was the debt to teachers. Doctors and workers in the cultural sphere announced their intend to join the teachers. In Krasnoyarsk Territory teachers were said to have become the mainforce in the strike movement with about 11,000 teachers are taking part in a three-day strike in many towns and Districts. Rural schools were affected more often because wages have not been paid for four or five months there. However, on 15 January any schools in Krasnoyarsk itself were to go on a one-day strike.
14 January 99 - HUNGRY AND EMBITTERED TEACHERS TAKE HOSTAGES. Tired of wage arrears, teachers at the town of Sheksna in ologda region seized the regional administration building with administration chief Vladimir Bukhonin, his deputy and director of the district education department inside. Hungry and impoverished teachers demanded heir money - they are already owed more than 5 million rubles.
13 January 99 - NOVOSIBIRSK REGION NABLE TO PAY PUBLIC SECTOR WAGES. Teachers in Novosibirsk Region began a strike in protest against the nonpayment of wages. Many rural teachers in the Region were on strike from 11-16 January with he support of their union, the Public Education Workers Trade Union Coordinating Committee. By the end f the year teachers were owed more than R250m in pay. Teachers in many rural schools have not seen any real money for four to eight months.
13 January 99 - TEACHERS STRIKE. Over 500 schools in Russia remained closed despite the fact that the winter holidays had ended. The second stage of the teachers’strike commenced n Vologda Region. Some 180 educational establishments in 19 Districts did not open as representatives of teachers in four Districts traveled to the Regional capital Vologda to meet the governor, Vyacheslav Pozgalev.
13 January 99 - OVER 500 SCHOOLS IN EIGHT REGIONS CLOSED BECAUSE OF WAGE RREARS. Classes in over 500 schools in eight constituent parts of the Russian Federation failed to resume after the winter holiday because wage arrears had not been repaid, the central committee of the trade union of education and science workers announced. The staff of 82 schools in Kurgan Region, 155 in Vologda Region and 168 in Altay Republic were said to be on strike. With the beginning of a new school term similar protests ere staged in other regions of Russia. In the Eastern Siberian region of Irkutsk, teachers at more than 150 schools in three districts refused to resume work after the holidays, news agencies reported. The teachers in his region are owed around 300 million rubles in unpaid wages. Strikes also began in four regions on Sakhalin n the Far East. In the Dolinsky region of the island the protesting teachers were joined by the employees of a local hospital and polyclinic. Teachers, as well as some other workers on the state budget, had not received nay money since March, 1998. In Krasnoyarsk, a huge Western Siberian region, more than 11,500 teachers started a three-day strike. The local teachers are owed 803 million rubles and the arrears keep growing. Teachers in ovosibirsk in Western Siberia and in Vladimir in Central Russia also refused to go to work and joined the strike, demanding back wages be paid first. Big wage arrears still remain in Karelia and Murmansk, in Northern Russia, said Nina Maslova, an Education Ministry spokesman in Moscow. Schoolteachers have not been paid here for more than Six months. Teachers in Russia are paid 50 percent from the federal budget and 50 percent from the local budgets. Maslova claimed that while the federal money reaches the regions more or less on time, the local authorities often delay payments, using the money for more urgent needs.
12 January 99 - TEACHERS IN ALTAY GO ON WEEK-LONG STRIKE OVER WAGE ARREARS. Teachers in 168 educational establishments in the Republic of Altay, situated in southwestern Siberia, or 78% of the total umber of local schools, began a one-week strike, demanding payment of months-long salary arrears. About 6,000 people out of 8,000 Altay Republic teachers joined the strike. Speaking on local radio in Gorno-Altaysk, he chairman of the Altay committee of the teachers’union, Yuriy Tishkov, announced that, following the week-long strike, if the situation with wage arrears did not improve, teacherswould go on a two-week strike in February. Wage arrears to teachers in this Russian region come to over 60m roubles.
12 January 99 - MEDICAL STAFF IN MARITIME TERRITORY OWED NINE MONTHS WAGES. Galina Yermoshina, head of the Maritime Territory Health Workers’ Union, told ITAR-TASS that medical staff in the territory have not received their pay for nine months of last year. Neither had they received their current wages as of 5th January. Yermoshina said the overall wage arrears for medical staff came to more than R200m. In Vladivostok, medics received two full monthly salaries prior to the new year holidays. The trade unions and the Vladivostok administration signed a timetable which provided for regular payment of current salaries and a gradual repayment of debts. According to Raisa Shabanova, head of the local teachers’ union, their situation was no better. Pay arrears for them amounted to more than R220m. The personnel of Maritime Territory medical institutions and schools, on the initiative of trade unions, decided to send telegrams to the Russian government and the State Duma to draw attention to the problem of wage arrears.
11 January 99 - RUSSIAN COAL MINERS TO STAGE WARNING STRIKE OVER WAGE ARREARS. Workers of the Inta mine in the echora coal basin announced their intention to begin a 10-day warning strike on 15 January demanding the payment of wage arrears and benefits which stood at R35m. The workers were also unhappy about the distribution of the money for 1999 among the mines of the Intaugol [Inta coal] company. In addition, the miners demanded that coal produced in excess of target figures should remain at their disposal. It was decided o spend the money earned by selling the coal on new equipment to upgrade the mines and on aid to disabled miners.
8 January 99 - KRASNOYARSK TERRITORY DOCTORS DEMAND PAY, ACCUSE GOVERNOR LEBED Representatives of the 12 largest health organizations of Krasnoyarsk picketed the territory’s administration on Orthodox Christmas Eve. Apart from demanding to have their wage arrears cleared, they also insisted on the immediate indexation of wages in connection with increased food prices. The health workers believe that Krasnoyarsk Territory governor, Aleksandr Lebed, who signed an agreement with hem last autumn, tricked them, having fulfilled his obligations only by half. Wage arrears continue to grow. employees of the Territory’s oncological centre have not been paid since May. Food, which was promised alongside wages, is not being distributed either.
6 January 99 - TWENTY SCHOOLS OF GENERAL DUCATION WENT ON STRIKE IN PRIANGARIE. According to the press-service of the administration f the Irkutsk region, 18 schools and 2 extracurricular organizations continued to strike; 1065 teachers did not work. Three regions of Priangarie were on strike - Yst-Kutuskij (13 schools and 2 extracurricular organizations), izheilimskij (4 school), Kirenskij (1 school). The main reason of the strike - wage debts from 4 to 11 months.