FEATURE

Factory Boss to Workers: Sell Your Stuff to Survive

Reuters

Thomas Peter / Reuters Security personnel clearing snow from the grounds of the Zlatoust steel mill in the Urals city of Zlatoust.

ZLATOUST, Chelyabinsk Region — The burly steelworker leading hunger strikers here is furious at huge wage cuts triggered by the global economic crisis but is not ready to man barricades just yet.

“We don’t want a revolution,” said Alexander Negrebetskikh, 32, standing near the gates of this sprawling Ural Mountains steel mill. “We just want to makes ends meet.”

His nemesis is the MBA-educated plant director, who has advised his workers to sell their possessions to get by. He sees the hunger strike, which involves just 16 of nearly 7,000 workers, a little differently.

“They should be put in prison and go on hunger strike there,” said plant director Sergei Khomyanin. “Hunger strikes by their very nature are extremist.”

Factories across the country have slashed jobs and wages since the economic slowdown took hold, prompting officials in Moscow to voice fears of unrest. In this town of 200,000 in the Chelyabinsk region, the feeling is less anger than fear as the prosperity afforded by years of wage gains vanishes overnight.

A five-day hunger strike ended Saturday after a concession on back wages. But protesters are preparing another strike later this week if, as seems likely, talks break down.

The hunger strikers insist that they are more worried about making payments on crippling consumer loans than they are about fomenting class warfare.

Management says it has slashed average wages by about 45 percent and given voluntary layoffs to 1,200 of 8,000 workers. Workers say they now make one-third of what they did last year, most less than 6,000 rubles ($174) a month. The hunger strikers want average wages to be raised to two-thirds of their precrisis levels, about 12,000 rubles.

“An increase to two-thirds would lead to bankruptcy or mass firings,” Khomyanin said. “There is no economic logic for these wage levels.”

Hunger strikes, last used by workers in the economic chaos of the 1990s, are a dangerous precedent, he said.

The government has warned that up to 100,000 people may lose their jobs in the metallurgical sector this year. But many factories are opting instead for deep pay cuts. “Firing people is not allowed” by the government, Khomyanin said. “Of course there’s nothing about it in the law, but on the level of agreement ... otherwise there would be a social explosion.”

He said that since September the factory’s income had fallen to less than a quarter of what it was before the slowdown as orders dry up and prices fall. Workers needed to accept that the good times are over for now.

“People don’t just need to start getting used to it, they need to start selling their things to clear their debts,” Khomyanin said. “There is no easy answer.”

The hunger strikers say they have been scrupulous about sticking to the law. They kept working and checked the Criminal Code to make sure they were doing nothing illegal. There have been no other outward signs of protest.

Negrebetskikh, a rolling mill operator, said he felt something had to be done. He lives with his wife and two children in a 44-square-meter apartment near the factory, where chimneys pump brown and gray smoke into the mountain air. In September, he was making up to 18,000 rubles per month before tax. Now, he is earning 5,900.

“The 5,000 rubles my wife makes working in a shop means the kids don’t go hungry,” he said.

After tax, their joint income is about 8,000 rubles. After 2,000 rubles in fixed utility bills and a 3,000 ruble monthly payment on a $1,000 fridge, they have 3,000 rubles left.

Treats like trips to the movie theater or candy for his children are unaffordable. “Sausage is now a luxury,” Negrebetskikh said. “It doesn’t matter to me if I go on hunger strike, I’m hungry anyway.”

For five days last week, Negrebetskikh slept on inflatable mattresses on the floor of the musty Union Hall at the plant with 15 other hunger strikers, sustaining himself on juice, tea and cigarettes. They hope more workers will join in, but support is patchy. Even the workers’ union has distanced itself from the strike.

Some night-shift workers voiced their support as they left the factory on a freezing morning this week. Others were apathetic or angry that the strike might make a bad situation worse.

“In my mill, they are frightened like hares,” said Pyotr, 33, who withheld his last name because he has “three kids to feed.”

“What can we do? Just sit and wait for better times!” he said, his hand shaking as he lit a cigarette. “If you strike, they’ll kick you out the gate. There’s nothing for you there.”

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