Grassroots strike of workers in Slonim

Workers of Slonim fur and feather factory organised a protest action against humiliatingly low salaries and bad working conditions.

About 60 people working in the sewing shop are standing near the building of the local district executive committee. They took with them written demands to head of the executive committee Mechyslau Kastsyuk on salary increase and improving of working conditions.

Today morning, workers of the sewing shop were paid for a month and saw their salaries were only 170-200 thousand rubles. They stopped working and went to the district executive committee.

As Halina, a worker, told to Radio Svaboda, people can’t suffer from this any more.

“We wrote that we didn’t like the salary. Here the sewers with 15-20-year experience work. They have only 170-200 thousand rubles. We don’t like working conditions: in winter the temperature is not higher 15°C in the shop. It’s too hot there in summer, we have no conditioners, the roof is leaking. We have no swing room, a normal toilet, the water is cold. We don’t like our administration – our chiefs miscall us,” Halina tells.

She added that worker tried to talk with the administration of the factory, but it had no effect.

“We are said the factory is lossmaking, that all. We are also said to work more,” Halina explains.

The workers of the factory haven’t met with the administration of the district executive committee. They were said the local authorities are absent. All written demands were recorded by a lawyer of the executive committee.

According to factory workers, only one shop is on strike today, but other ones can join it, as the situation is the same there, they only get their salaries on other day.