Grassroots protests on enterprises

A grassroots meeting against closing down workshops and mass redundancy took place at the meat processing factory in Baranavichy.

About 40 workers of canning shop have recently lost job. About 100 workers of the factory may face the same problem.

People work only 7 to 10 days a month at the factory. They held a grassroots meeting after they had learnt about closing down of the canning shop. They fear now they will have the same destiny.

“I am speaking on behalf of the workers of the shop. The problem of redundancy is a matter of great concern for us. They are being promised all the time everything will be all right, the shop will be reconstructed, we have progress. But they just promise, and we haven’t job. Town mayor Dzyachkouski has visited us, but he hasn’t said any news,” Volha Heniyush, one of the factory workers, said to Radio Svaboda.

The factory was joined to the Byaroza meat processing factory, allegedly to be reconstructed and modernised. But it has lead to closing up the production and redundancy of workers, most of them women.

“I’m brining up a child alone. I’ve earned 184 000 Belarusian rubles in January. How can I live on it? I began to work at the factory when I was 18, now I am 37. Where should I go to? I have nowhere to go. There are many of us. Workers from the killing department are in the same situation,” factory worker Ala Zaiko said.

The collective of the factory sent written appeals to the concern, the administration of the Brest Area, the President’s Administration, but no answers have been received. Director of the Byaroza meat processing factory Uladzimir Zhukovich refused to comment on the events at the subordinated to him factory.

Problems of the Baranavichy meat processing factory are typical for enterprises of food industry, and they have some reasons, economist Mikhas Zaleski said.

“The first reason is enforcement, the second one is human rights. Both credit and debit debts have increased for January-September. If there is no normal bankruptcy proceeding, they begin to unite enterprises. It is liquidation in the form of link-up. The European laws provide wage payment up to 7 years. A person has no rights in case of redundancy in our country,” the economist thinks.