Workers Of Belarusian Metallurgical Plant Sent On Vacation
12- 5.01.2016, 8:33
- 28,588
Long Christmas holidays for some people are not a holiday.
At crisis Belarusian enterprises employees are transferred to the two-thirds of bare salary and sent to the “winter holidays”. But the problem is not seasonal. According to official statistics, last year in January-September, 260 thousand people worked part-time. This is twice as much as it was in 2014. Now, it’s the turn of the leader of the Belarusian industry, Belsat writes.
Is that because of inefficient management or global crisis? And maybe it’s both? The result is the same: the Belarusian Metallurgical Plant in Zhlobin has found itself in a very difficult financial situation.
The former leader of the Belarusian economy made up to 3% of GDP in the best years. But after the investment projects worth $ 1.2 billion had been completed, in 2014 it ended the year with a negative result of 63 million dollars. The construction of new workshops has deprived the company of working capital. In 2015, the situation deteriorated and forced the plant to issue foreign currency bonds, in order to get at least some money, though the authorities did not want to say the hard word “crisis”.
The plant management refers most of the problems to external factors: the oil price decline is to blame, China, which has filled up the global market with super-cheap metal, and allied Russia.
According to the deputy director, the plant is going to optimize the production, but it will not affect the workers. Last year the company even employed new people. But before the New Year, some workshops froze, and began to send employees on leave or reduce wages. The official trade union does not react to the situation.
In the situation of intense competition and falling prices on main products of the plant neither the company's management nor the major shareholder of the plant – the state – voice any anti-crisis plan, but some workers still remain optimistic.
In the report of the Ministry of Finance for the third quarter of 2015 BMP was among the top three unprofitable Belarusian enterprises with the result of minus 636 billion rubles.
