Workers receive hay instead of money in Krychau district

The district has not money to pay wages.

A number of companies in the Krychau district give grain, meat, milk and even hay to their employees as a part of salaries for September.

The farms Dobrasts, Zvezda-Agro and Maliatsichy were late to pay wages in violation of collective employment agreements, Viasna human rights centre reports.

According to Volny Gorod, an independent newspaper of Krychau (issue No. 46 of November 24, 2013) the company Krychau Rayagropromtechsnab paid its employees one day later than it should in accordance with the collective employment agreement.

Volny Gorod reports that company directors received instructions at a meeting in the Krychau district executive committee with participation of the committee chairman Vasily Sysoeu to give peasants food instead of wages.

Volny Gorod's journalist Mikalai Herdziy says employees can receive “in-kind” payment only if it is provided for by the employment agreement between the company and the trade union committee representing interests of peasants. To receive in-kind payments an employee should file an application to the company director saying he does it voluntary. If there's no application or the application is forged, the company director can be punished, the journalist says.

It remains unclear how peasants of the Krychau district will pay for services, medicines or industrial goods if they receive food as a greater part of their miserable pay. The Krychau district seems to have returned in the 1990s, when this payment system was popular among agricultural companies.