Chris Doss The Russia Journal --------------------------- Protests Over Salary Debt to Doctors, Teachers Discussed
Vremya MN 27 July 2002 [translation for personal use only] Report by Oksana Karpova: "Wages to the Starving"
Budget-funded workers have once again found themselves in a "difficult position" - arrears to physicians and teachers have reached 3 billion rubles [R]. And even massive-scale protest actions cannot change the situation.
As Vremya MN has learned, staff of the only ambulance unit in the city of Ust-Kut, Irkutsk Oblast, is again preparing for a protest action. (The oblast administration has run up a R575,000 debt to this medical institution). We remind our readers that 14 ambulance doctors, driven to despair, already starved themselves for eight days at the beginning of July. And had it not been for the intervention of the Russian Federation Minister of Health, Yuriy Shevchenko, it is altogether unknown how this protest action would have ended. Three medics, in very serious condition, were hospitalized on the sixth day of the hunger strike. But the city authorities "diplomatically" sustained a pause. In the end, they did after all pay R167,000. But this money was intended only for those who were on strike. The remaining ambulance workers were left empty-handed. In an interview with Vremya MN, the chief of the ambulance station of the city of Ust-Kut, Vera Lukhova, said that the local authorities had for several months been transferring to physicians only the "gubernatorial" supplement to their wages (from R200 to R400). The rest of the money, evidently, they had to forget about. "The city's mayor openly declared that he had nothing to pay their wages with, 'because timber has fallen in price.' And the deputy mayor added, 'starve yourselves, starve yourselves to death if you want to; nothing is going to change anyway,'" says the chief of the ambulance service.
Thus, it has turned out that the assertions of the Russian Federation Health Ministry to the effect that the Irkutsk Oblast administration had at the end of the strike directed a subsidy of R5.277 million to the medical workers is only a myth. According to the information of ambulance staff, money does seem to have been transferred to Ust-Kutskiy Rayon. Only the local authorities allotted 70 percent of this amount for teachers' vacation pay and salary. And where the rest is, is not known.
In an interview with Vremya MN, the head of the department of educational medical institutions and staffing policy of the Ministry of Health, Nikolay Volodin, characterized the situation in this way: "The situation is difficult, but it is under control." The weekly situation with respect to payment of wages is being monitored by headquarters, and all information is sent to the government (the headquarters was set up under the Health Ministry back in 1999).
"Of course, our headquarters does not command finances. Therefore, we are not in a position to undertake concrete measures. But we urgently contact the chiefs of the local administration and of units subordinate to the Ministry. And if there is no reaction on their part, then we call those responsible to Moscow to a staff session. This, of course, is not a punishment for the leaders, but rather, moral influence on them. But I will note that in the majority of instances, it is a rather effective method," Volodin asserts.
But in all, arrears in the sector have now accumulated in the amount of up to R1.379 billion.
For more than a month, medical workers of Kirov Oblast, Krasnoyarsk Kray, the Republic of Tyva, and the Karyak Autonomous Okrug have not received their salaries. And this is by no means a complete list.
Therefore, within the Health Ministry it is believed that it will not be possible to defuse the situation before October or November. After all, the regional authorities need to sort things out not only with medical workers, but with teachers as well.
In the area of education, the situation is also heating up. According to data of Russia's Ministry of Education, as of 17 July, the arrears amounted to R1.719 billion (that is, more than the arrears to the medical workers). And this is given the fact that in July, teachers of 74 components of the Federation, with the help of the Finance Ministry, were paid vacation pay! In an interview to Vremya MN, the chief of the administration for regional educational policy and inspection of the Russian Education Ministry, Valeriy Gribanov, said that the most difficult position remains, as before, in Krasnoyarsk Kray, and all hopes lie in the government.
In turn, within the government, prospects of paying out wages to budget-funded workers are assessed rather optimistically. Finance Minister Aleksey Kudrin declared that the arrears to doctors and teachers "will succeed in being repaid in full by September." True, by that time, the vacation season will already be over. But this fact, it seems, does not trouble the government particularly. The most important thing for the Cabinet of Ministers is that there be no problems at the federal level. As for the rest, Kudrin recalls, components of the Federation "themselves should fulfill their obligations at the expense of their own resources."
The President of Russia has personally decided to sort this situation out. Vladimir Putin supported Education Minister Vladimir Filippov in saying that municipalities must pay educational institutions' utilities payments and prepare them for the school year. But responsibility for the payment of wages to teachers must be borne by Federation components.
As for such plans in medicine, this question has for now not been discussed at such a high level. Can it be that another doctors hunger strike is needed in order for the situation to change for the better?
Meanwhile
President of Russia Vladimir Putin has delegated the government to decrease wage arrears to budget-funded workers. At a meeting on Friday with Deputy Prime Minister Valentina Matviyenko, the President stated: "You and the Finance Ministry, and the government as a whole, assured me that by summer wage arrears would have been reduced in our country. But they have risen, and have risen substantially." The head of state asked Matviyenko to assess the situation and take measures. In her turn, the Deputy Prime Minister explained that the government had sent budget-funded workers an additional R5 billion. Moreover, the Cabinet of Ministers has introduced a law to the State Duma in accordance with which it is contemplated to allocate another R10 billion for the payment of wages to budget-funded workers.