Russian Cabinet views air traffic controllers hunger strike

By hunger strikes air traffic controllers will not gain their ends, believes the Russian government. Such forms of protest cannot settle labor disputes, the RIA Novosti correspondent quotes a high-ranking source in the Russian cabinet as saying on Monday.

Air traffic controllers' hunger strikes have no direct relation to the government because they are not civil servants but work for the corporation, stressed the source.

The source found it hard to comment on the efficiency of such a form of protest as hunger strike and only noted he is not a "dietician".

The government recalled the on-going hunger strike of pilots "has failed to paralyze work of sea transport." The replacement of civil aircraft dispatchers by the military personnel has become a worldwide practice, said the source. It believes that as soon as "they see that the air traffic controllers on strike can be done without, the employers will take a logic decision" and wipe them out, believes the source.

The average wage of Russian air traffic controllers is 70 percent higher than the average in industry, recalled the source.