Revolt of aircraft manufacturers in Kharkov: The authorities are taking revenge for supporting Yanukovych

The Kharkov Aircraft Plant (KhSAPP) rebelled. Yesterday, about two hundred protesters gathered near his entrance. They threatened to block traffic on Sumskaya Street in order to attract the attention of regional and city authorities. For eight months now, workers and engineers have not received wages.

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Based on the results of the first quarter of 2015, wage arrears at the plant will increase to UAH 43 million. In addition, since December 5, 2014, the enterprise has been operating in a reduced capacity, and since February 20 of this year it has been in forced downtime.

After consulting, the protesters abandoned this idea, since on Monday, April 6, the trade union committee of the plant planned a meeting with the participation of representatives of the regional state administration and the Kharkov City Council. If the issue with salaries is not resolved there, then the KhAZ workers will still block Sumskaya. A representative of the regional government unequivocally explained to those present that the region has nothing to do with wage debts, and workers should address this issue to the director of the plant. But it just doesn’t exist either in place or on paper. The general director of the aircraft plant, Anatoly Myalitsa, was fired as part of lustration, and acting. O. General Director Igor Suntsov is away. Leonty Gontar, who introduced himself as “acting” acting." He did not say when the workers would be paid, but only reminded that there was no money at the enterprise. In his opinion, the plant will be able to pay people as soon as it receives a VAT refund, which will happen in the near future.

The chairman of the plant’s trade union committee, Mikhail Pogorelov, says that the plant’s foreign partners promised to place an order for aircraft and transfer a large amount to the accounts of KSAPP on August 15 and is sure that the plant’s manager was fired in vain. After all, he heads the plant intermittently for more than thirty years, leaving to work as the first secretary of the regional party committee (the last, I note) and the minister of industrial policy of Ukraine. He came under lustration not because of his regional committee past, but because in 2013 the aircraft factory workers, led by their boss, supported the policies of Viktor Yanukovych.

The aircraft factory is a tasty and interesting place in all respects. Three kilometers from the city center, a live runway on the site of a racetrack that existed in Tsarist and early Soviet times. It was there that aviators Utochkin and Grizodubov introduced Kharkov residents to winged aircraft. Factory workshops were built around this strip. Tu-104, Tu-124 and Tu-134 were produced there. Then the plant switched to “Antonov” models.

At the turn of the 2005st century, the plant was inundated with orders from Iran, Libya, Sudan and Egypt. But disaster struck: several plane crashes, after which customers began to lose interest in Kharkov products. And then there’s the scandal with misuse of property by director Pavel Naumenko. From 2009 to 80, the plant produced only one aircraft - for Muammar Gaddafi. But in the 320s, 134 Tu-2014s were produced over the same period. In general, the plant has been having problems with orders and, therefore, with wages for a whole decade. For years they waited for her there sometimes. In October XNUMX, KSAPP was declared bankrupt. A significant proportion of the company's employees are pensioners.

There is no talk yet about the privatization of the plant. “The Kharkov state aviation production enterprise needs fundamental changes and effective management,” said the head of the Kharkov regional state administration, Igor Rainin. What these changes are, other than a total check by the end of May, is still unclear.

We'll wait until Monday, of course. And then we will be able to understand whether aircraft manufacturers are ready to endure adversity (they have developed a habit of this), or whether they will achieve their goal.