The Country Took a Day Off

This is how the National strike is being held in Belarus.

The Belarusian opposition, as promised two weeks ago, began a nationwide strike on October 26. As expected, Lukashenka did not fulfill any of the conditions of the People's Ultimatum: he did not initiate an investigation into the torture of detained demonstrators, did not release political prisoners, and, of course, did not resign. Thousands of people across the country responded by not showing up for work.

The first to go on strike were the ammonia and carbamide shops of the Hrodna Azot plant.

"At 7 in the morning, about 200 people gathered near the entrance," says the chairman of the enterprise's strike committee, Yury Ravavy. - Their shift was supposed to start at 8 o'clock, but the workers were not going to take it. By 7:30 am, security officials were brought to the plant. They began to push people behind the checkpoint - into the territory of the plant. Detentions began: fifty people were taken to the ROVD. The detainees were beaten and stamped on. They asked: "What, bitches, don't you want to work?"

The workers on strike did not accept the shift.

- Now, those who have worked at night continue to stay at their workplaces. But they have been working for 19 hours, - notes Ravavy. "At the same time, the strikers refuse to accept a shift in the key workshops of Hrodna Azot: in the Ammonia-3 workshop and the Nitric acid and urea-ammonia mixtures workshop. These workshops are half of the enterprise's capacity; they process 5% of the republican natural gas. According to my information, the workers of auxiliary shops are now also thinking of leaving the shops. But the bosses are not yet giving them the opportunity to leave their jobs.

Ravavy says that the general director of Hrodna Azot, Ihar Bobyr, and the chief engineer, Siarhei Silivonik, tried to persuade the workers to accept the shift. Unsuccessfully.

Students of Hrodna State University and taxi drivers came to support the plant workers. The townspeople carry pizza and tea to the protesters.

Minsk workers organized their strikes differently.

A procession was held at the tractor plant. Dozens of factory workers marched through the shops, chanting "Join us!" They did not start work.

At the wheel tractor plant, the procession was staged not in the shops but in the enterprise's territory.

At the Minsk Electrotechnical Plant, the stamping shop stopped work: the plant workers came to their workplaces and began to simply chat with each other.

At Belkommunmash, engineers and technologists joined the strike. A significant part of the staff took sick leave and time off.

The largest action among Minsk "industrialists" is at the tractor plant.

"At 8 am, we gathered at the checkpoint, about 150 people," says one of the strike participants. - Then we went marching through the shops. First, the mechanical, then we moved to the press. We shouted to other factory workers to join. And 50 people really joined. At some point, Andrei Susliankou, deputy director for ideology, and Aliaksei Kalesnikau, head of the thermal department, appeared. They started asking, on what basis are we walking around the plant. Well, we actually work here. We just ignored them.

According to the chairman of the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions Aliaksandr Yarashuk, strikes at enterprises may expand.

- The response has already been received on a more noticeable scale than could be expected. If, until this day, we assumed that the protests would be local, that people would simply take time off, today we see that, for example, at Hrodna Azot, it may even be a question of stopping production," says Yarashuk. - Strikes are going on at a number of enterprises where wages are higher than the national average - at the same MAZ, at Belaruskali, where people receive $ 800-1000. And this clearly indicates that the protest is not social but political.

Workers are an integral part of Belarusian society. And if now the authorities are trying to crush the public by force, they are trying to crush the workers too.

But the factory workers are not the only ones who went on strike on Monday. Hundreds of shops, cafes, hairdressing salons have not opened all over Belarus: "Recount," "Day off," "Change of goods."

"There are four people working in our store. I took a vacation at my own expense; I also sent my employees to "unpaid," but in fact, I will pay them, - one of the entrepreneurs told me. - For me, this is a personal matter: on August 10, my son suffered at the rally - he was beaten with truncheons. If not for this episode, it would not have closed.

Another form of protest is extremely slow driving. Even those who went to work resort to it: Belarusians say on social networks that trains are late on average by an hour. Drivers also "slow down" on city streets: they create traffic jams. True, not always without consequences: in the morning, eyewitnesses filmed on video how, near the Pushkinskaya metro station, traffic police officers beat with truncheons on a "too slow" car. The driver has to speed up.

By noon, a rally of Minsk students began at the Belarusian State University: it gathered about 400 people who blocked Leninhradskaja Street.

- We started the strike at 9 am. We got up from our desks and went to the hall, says one of the protest participants, a student of the Belarusian State University. "At first we just sat in the hall, then occupied the corridors of their houses, urging others to join the strike. The teachers did not interfere. The only faculty that did not take part at all is the military: they are forbidden.

The police tried to disperse the student rally without using weapons.

The students clasped their hands and chanted: "Get out - you and your AMAP!" Surprisingly, the security forces really left.

Maybe - for reinforcements, but the students didn't care anymore: they retreated to Independence Square, where they joined the procession of Minsk pensioners.

A separate action was held by students and professors of the Minsk State Linguistic University: they stood in a chain in front of the building of the university and sang "Warriors of Light."

The only ones who cannot go on strike directly are doctors, especially in light of the brutal crackdown on demonstrations. According to unofficial information, during the dispersal of the procession on October 25, 6 people were wounded by rubber bullets and flash-noise grenades.

But doctors have a different form of protest. In regional chats on Telegram, people write that it is so easy to get sick leave like never before in Belarus: they give it for five days at once, in case of any ailment.

Be healthy, Belarus!

Aliaksei Maltsau, Novaya Gazeta