Worker Revealed About What's Going On At Belarusian Enterprises

The absurdities of Lukashenka economy.

In an interview with Studio X97, the leader of the Minsk tractor plant strike committee, Siarhei Dyleuski, described the current situation at factories in Belarus:

- The situation is simply appalling. The rights of workers to safe labor are not respected. Basic sanitary and fire safety standards are not observed. I can even remember me, my workplace: when it was raining, we covered the machines with cellophane, without thinking about ourselves, trying to save the equipment so there were no short circuits. The management, instead of taking some time and money to repair the roofs in the workshops, bought us cellophane and, fools, cover the machines. They didn't even care that we would be given an electric shock or get killed.

- There are enough absurdities.

There are plenty of absurdities. I will say it again: there is a very high rate of injuries at production facilities. Last month there were two emergencies, not even at my company, at Belaruskali. One fatality, the second case - a severe injury. And that was within a month. So, this suggests that on the wave of protests and strikes back in the fall - now there is a labor shortage at this enterprise, but the management still forces the understaffed brigades to go down to these mines. And people take on more work than they can handle, just to earn money for their families somehow. And it turns out that one man can't take sufficient care of another man, and there are injuries. It's a problem, and people can't complain, there's no one to complain to, independent unions in the country are killed.

Let's be honest, let's face it, independent unions are dead, they've been killed. The pro-government unions, the so-called trade unions, are not trade unions, they are the junta's sycophants, who do not decide anything. They do not defend workers' rights. They do not investigate any emergencies at the enterprise. Everything boils down to this: if a worker dies, God forbid, it is the worker's own fault. This is the case everywhere. And our task is to correct this.

- How did the strike at MTZ begin last year?

- Like, perhaps, at all the enterprises in Belarus. There was no order to strike as such, there was no Vasia Pupkin, who suddenly said: "Let's mobilize!" It turned out that people came to work and shared these emotions with their partners. There was simply machining facility standing idle there, and people in the smoking rooms would gather in some groups, chatting among themselves, sharing what they saw, projecting, filtering through themselves all of the information that was out there. That is, the people were in such a shocked state that no one would come close to the machine. That's where the strike began. The people simply said, "How much longer can we go on, how much longer are we going to put up with this?" They just stopped and walked toward the central gatehouse.

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