Fate of workers of Kruhlaye Flax Factory remains unclear
Workers of the open corporation
"Kruhlaye Flax Factory" continue struggling against the
shutdown of the enterprise.
The local authorities intend to
close the factory this months and propose the workers to go to work
to the flax factory in the neighboring Shklou district.
Civil
activist Zinaida Mileshchanka, a former member of the Kruhlaye Town
Council, where the bulk of the workers live, helps them to defend
their rights.
"It is not the first enterprise to be
closed down, reduced or amalgamated in Kruhlaye", says Zinaida
Mileshchanka. "Now the turn has come to the oldest enterprise of
the district, the Kruhlaye Flax Factory. The majority of workers are
of pre-pension age and it is difficult for them to find any job. The
only thing they were proposed by the authorities is going to work 40
kilometers away, to the flax factory in the Shklou district.
Meanwhile, even this job is temporary, nobody promises to conclude
any labor agreements with the Shklou Flax Factory or pay for the
travel expenditures."
According to Zinaida Mileshchanka,
workers of the Kruhlaye Flax Factory think that all promises of the
authorities are just trickery used by the authorities to evade from
issuing the workers with financial aid due to the liquidation of the
working places.
"The people believe that everything is
done not to pay them a penny for the liquidation for their working
places. Everything seems quite simple: if the factory is liquidated,
the people could be dismissed in conformity with the legislation:
with preliminary notification, payment of the financial aid
guaranteed by the law and the subsequent registration at the labor
registry office. However, instead of it the district authorities
insult the workers and the administration of the factory as if they
have just broken loose," says the activist.
"The
factory workers filed an application to the Kruhlaye District
Prosecutor's Office and a collective address to the Mahiliou Regional
Executive Committee. At present they are collecting signatures under
a letter to the head of the state, Aliaksandr Lukashenka and a
collective address to the Horki Inter-district Labor Inspection, to
which they decided to apply on advice of human rights defenders. Some
of the workers are thinking about establishing a unit of the
Independent Trade Union of Radio Electronic Industry at the factory,
as far as the official trade unions in no way help the people to
defend their rights, being ready to implement any orders of the power
vertical," points Zinaida Mileshchanka.
The staff of the
Kruhlaye Flax Factory counts about 80 people, most of whom worked at
it more than 15 years.
During the recent years, a number of
organizations and enterprises were closed down in Kruhlaye – a
butter factory, a bread factory, the district consumer society, an
agricultural chemical plant, the Rakushytsy poultry factory, a
brickyard, the Kruhliany boarding school. A number of collective
farms were reorganized.
The only enterprise which continues
working stably is the local building trust #266.