Trade Unions Protest Across Russia

[fgalkin]

More stupidity from the Motherland.

Trade Unions Protest Across Russia
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: June 10, 2004

Filed at 1:10 p.m. ET

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian trade unions tested their strength Thursday with nationwide protests against the government's social policies, including a plan to substitute cash payments for free transport, medical treatment and other privileges many citizens have enjoyed since Soviet times.

About 1,500 doctors, servicemen, engineers and others gathered outside government headquarters in Moscow in a chilly drizzle to urge authorities to raise their salaries and preserve their social benefits.

Demonstrations also were held in dozens of regional capitals and organizers claimed a total of about 1 million people took part, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

Natalya Nazaryeva, 45, who has worked as a medical assistant for 27 years in the small town of Semiluki in the Voronezh region, about 300 miles south of Moscow, said she could not survive on her salary of $70 a month. The official poverty line is about $75 a month.

``If our salaries aren't raised, villages will be left without doctors!'' said Nazaryeva, who held a banner reading ``Poor doctors are a disgrace for Russia.''

The protesters' main demands included paying off overdue salaries to workers, raising state workers' wages by at least 50 percent and not allowing a reduction in the social security tax paid by employers.

The participants also want the government to call off its plan to make cash payments in lieu of benefits such as free rides on public transit and discounted medicine for pensioners, the disabled and other groups.

Authors of the government-proposed plan, which was submitted last week to the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, say they want privileges to be better-targeted -- arguing, for instance, that rural residents don't benefit from free subway rides. But the proposed legislation has drawn massive criticism from affected groups that fear their benefits -- a key element of the Soviet-era social safety net -- will be cut.

``A senior officer gets between 4,000 ($140) and 5,000 ($170) rubles a month and the law forbids us to get a second job,'' said Igor Kurochkin, of the All-Russian Soldiers' Union. ``If we are stripped of our social benefits, how are we supposed make ends meet?''

The protests followed hunger strikes by coal miners in Siberia and southern Russia demanding unpaid wages.

Trade unions claim some 40 million members, but Yuri Korgunyuk, an analyst with the Indem think tank in Moscow, said labor is traditionally weak in Russia. He said one legacy of the Soviet Union, which suppressed civil society, is a lack of initiative among workers.

The New York Times

I've heard on the Russian news that officlas from rural areas are saying that if this continues, there will be no new school year, as all the teachers will leave and go to the cities to get jobs.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[fgalkin]

larger article from The Moscow Times

Thousands Rally Over Social Policies
By Oksana Yablokova
Staff Writer

Thousands of trade union supporters across the country took to the streets Thursday to protest government plans to replace healthcare and transportation benefits for socially vulnerable groups with nonindexed cash payments, and called for higher salaries for low-paid state employees.

About 1,500 protesters, including doctors, teachers and other state employees, gathered outside the White House in central Moscow, calling for the Cabinet's plan to be scrapped.

Organizers linked the protest against the bill with hunger strikes over back wages by coal miners in Khakasia, where one striker died Monday, and Rostov.

Mikhail Shmakov, head of the Federation of Independent Unions, the country's biggest grouping, told protesters: "The government must not meddle with the Labor Code, it must pay wage arrears and increase the minimum [monthly] wage to 2,500 rubles [$85]."

He said national strikes could follow in the fall if the bill was not dropped.

Benefits covering subsidized utilities and transportation for millions of Russians will end under the new law, being replaced by cash payments. Recipients currently qualify for the benefits under various categories, including as pensioners, war veterans, through disability, and as current or former employees of the armed forces and security services.

The State Duma is to consider the bill in a first reading July 2.

Though not large compared with the nationwide wage arrears protests of the 1990s, Thursday's demonstration could well be the first in a series of rallies over the plans, which are to take effect later this year. Success in reducing state employees' salary backlogs has been seen as one of President Vladimir Putin's key achievements in his oft-stated policy of reducing poverty, and has contributed to popular perceptions of increasing financial stability in the country.

The bill's Cabinet sponsors say it is aimed at targeting cash resources to those most in need.

But the proposed legislation has drawn massive criticism from affected groups like pensioners and the disabled, who fear that the proposed 800 to 3,500 ruble monthly supplement to pensions and allowances will not cover the value of privileges they now receive, and could be eaten away by inflation and price hikes for basic utilities.

They are worried that the cash allowances will not keep pace with hikes in charges for electricity and gas supplies, as Russia seeks to meet its commitments to the European Union on energy prices, agreed to last month as part of the negotiations for its accession to the World Trade Organization.

The average monthly pension is now 1,760 rubles ($60), less than the official poverty line of about $75 per month.

One of the protesters outside the White House, Natalya Nazaryeva, 45, a medical assistant from the Voronezh region, told The Associated Press she couldn't survive on her salary of 2,000 rubles ($70) per month.

"If our salaries aren't raised, villages will be left without doctors," said Nazaryeva, who held a banner reading, "Poor doctors are a disgrace for Russia."

Demonstrations were also held in dozens of cities nationwide from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok, Interfax reported.

In Kaliningrad, some 200 activists from trade unions and veterans' organizations rallied outside the regional administration headquarters.

"It is clear that the bill does not suit millions of people across the country and should not be considered," said Mikhail Osboit, head of a local group of veterans of the Chernobyl nuclear accident cleanup, Interfax reported.

Shmakov said that street protests would continue until the government dropped the bill and other plans cutting living standards, and that unions would call a nationwide strike in September if their demands were not met.

But later in the day, after meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov, Shmakov said a compromise on the bill might be found, and that the government had agreed to set up a commission to look into protesters' demands.

Yury Korgunyuk, a political analyst with the Indem think tank, said that future protests against the bill would likely be sporadic and small.

"Shmakov's union federation does not look like a serious leader of the labor movement at all," he said. "The labor movement is very weak, and is incapable of organizing workers who clearly lack initiative in fighting for their rights."

Oleg Shein, a Duma deputy with the Rodina faction and an expert on social and labor policy, said that the union leaders had highlighted only some of the consequences of the benefits plan.

"Today's protest was staged to let off steam," he said by telephone Thursday. "The real dangers of the bill were not voiced at all. The majority of the population does not know or understand the proposals being discussed."

"If pensioners knew that in six months they would have to start paying housing and utilities costs in full, and only receive a miniscule pensions raise, we would be dealing with protests by millions of people across the country," he said

linky

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin