Workers in Babruisk threaten to launch hunger strike

Dismissed workers demand that Lukashennka reply to their appeal.

Members of the Free Trade Union, who were dismissed from the tractor parts plant in Babruisk, say they will go on a hunger strike if they don't receive a reply to their appeal to Aliaksandr Lukashenka in the nearest two days, Radio Svaboda reports.

The former plant workers wrote in an open letter to Lukashenka that the plant administration had violated their constitutional right to labour and dismissed them illegally:

“Help us to restore our right to work, which you named as the fundamental right of the Belarusians. Our 'guilt' is that we formed a trade union – the Belarusian Free Trade Union.”

The letter to Lukashenka was sent on October 20. Workers say they received a reply from the president's administration saying that the appeal was resent to the administration of Minsk Tractor Plant, a group of companies that includes the tractor parts plant.

“We haven't received an answer. They sent a formal reply, but we have nothing from the tractor plant. We'll wait for a while and launch a hunger strike,” Mikalai Zhybul, a dismissed worker with 30 years of experience, says. He is to go on pension in two years.

“The president, apparently, didn't read our letter. We'll gather journalists and all people interested in the topic to tell them we are alive and continue to struggle. We'd like pubilc to turn attention to the situation at the plant. What they are doing at the plant harms the state. Such people were called saboteurs in Soviet times. We appealed to many agencies, but we haven't received any answers. They find it normal,” Mikalai Zhybul says.

The workers wrote to Lukashenka that qualified specialists were fired. They put blame for their dismissal on plant director Aliaksandr Ahranovich, who, as they say, “declared a war against the free trade union”.

The plant administration refuses to comment on the situation.

Four dismissed workers say they are ready for a hunger strike. Their contracts expired and weren't prolonged. They hope for the support of their colleagues at the plant.

Members of the Belarusian Free Trade Union held a three-day hunger strike in March. Twenty workers took part in the strike.