'Company's Fate Since New Year Is Unknown'

An employee of Belgee describes the state of the company.

An employee of Belgee, Arseni, told zerkalo.io that salaries at the enterprise have been falling for more than a year.

- In 2019, for example, the salary was calculated as follows: the salary was about 200 dollars, and the rest was a bonus. It depended on execution of the monthly plan, and there was an additional bonus for work over and above the norm. It was somewhere around 110-120%.

In 2020, he says, the bonus was made fixed. It became 80% of the previous one, due to which salaries dropped by 150-200 rubles. In 2021, the innovations continued: the monthly bonus was reduced to 65% if the plan is fulfilled.

- And at the same time, we were tied off from the dollar exchange rate, as it was unstable, but the rate at which we were being paid money was always fixed. In other words, even if the dollar was 3 roubles at the banks, our exchange rate was fixed at 2.3 roubles. In this regard, salaries have fallen by another 10-15%. Although, when transferring to Belarusian roubles, the rate was slightly revised and the salary was raised, but I would not call the increase "significant". As a result, the average salary was 1100-1200 rubles.

This year, this amount fell by another 100-200 roubles. Certainly, because of the sanctions, says Arseni.

Along with earnings, the workload has fallen - now it is noticeably lower than it was a year or two ago.

- There used to be overtime work and we had to work sometimes on Saturdays. This year, the plant was practically idle, and something was being done, but it could not be called a full-time work, of course, you can understand that this also affected the salaries. Since this summer, the downtime became noticeable. Now the media say that the plant will be operating at full capacity from autumn, but I don't think so. Yes, the deliveries have been stabilized little by little, but, again, there is no certainty: we work for some time, and then we wait a few days for either components or the bodies to arrive from China.

According to Arseni, in October the welding and painting workshops may stop working at the plant, because of this workers are redeployed to other departments, which causes "a lot of negativity and layoffs".

"The bosses say that it will be only until the new year, and then the company's fate is unknown," the Belgee employee says.

The majority of finished products go to the Russian market, Arseni continues. There is still some demand in Belarus.

"Production is not stable at the moment. It seems to me that the Chinese side wants to suspend production in Belarus, perhaps, in order to avoid reputational damage. First of all, some part of the Chinese citizens who used to work at the plant has already left it for good. Also, the West puts pressure on China to comply with sanctions against Russia and Belarus, and the export of the brand is precisely targeted at those countries. Thirdly, I do not think that the company wants to be associated with aggressors. However, this is just my speculation and the real situation may look different," the factory worker reasons.