No Pay, No Work!

Sakhalin miners won’t work for free
While developing a new Labor Code, communists and other left-wing forces did their best to keep the socialist era guarantees to the workers. However, due to a compromise between the Russian Federation of Independent Trade Unions and the government, they were not successful with their struggle. In any case, as it turned out, the new Labor Code provides considerable opportunities for workers to exert influence upon employers.

According to the Vostok Media news agency, miners from the Russian city of Sinegorks, which is on Sakhalin Island, driven to despair, decided to fight for their constitutional rights. The matter of the fact is that the miners were not paid their salaries for seven months already. According to the new Labor Code, if the backpay exceeds 15 days, workers have the right to stop working. The Sakhalin miners organized a meeting and decided to inform the management of the Yuzhno-Sakhalinskaya mine that they were refusing to work for this very reason. The strike caused great turmoil on Sakhalin Island; officials from the Labor Inspection office and local prosecutor’s office immediately arrived at the mine. However, neither the director of the mine, nor representatives of the mine's management came to meet with the workers and Labor Inspection officials. Instead, Deputy of the regional Duma Zhanna Ivanova and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Vice-Mayor Vladimir Vereshchagin tried to persuade the miners to recommence work. However, the strikers won’t obey. Ahtyam Ahtyrov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Maria Gousseva