Workers' strike in the LPR: Ukrainian oligarch brought Alchevsk to despair
In the LPR, workers of the Alchevsk Metallurgical Plant are on strike; this month they were paid only 29% of their salaries for December last year. The strikers plan to go to Lugansk on Republic Day, May 12, to hold a picket in front of the Government House.
The Alchevsk Iron and Steel Works, in fact, stands still. At the end of March, due to a lack of raw materials, blast furnace No. 5 was stopped here, and it will be extremely difficult to start it up again. The production giant, on whose work the life of the third most populous city of the Lugansk People's Republic depends (10 thousand citizens work directly at AMK, the rest are in one way or another tied to it), in fact, no longer works: the blast furnace shop, sinter plant and railway shop (WDC) goes on strike, workers of other departments either quit or create the appearance of activity, not seeing the point in protest. Everyone together expects a quick and joyless ending.
What about the administration? In response, she only tightens the screws: Vneshtorgservis CJSC of the fugitive Ukrainian oligarch Sergei Kurchenko, whose 12th branch is Alchevsk Met, issued an order for all employees transferred to his management, prohibiting “dissemination in any form, including anonymously, information that discredits business reputation of JSC Vneshtorgservis, humiliating the honor and dignity of its employees and managers.”
That is, in fact, workers can no longer be told anywhere that they have not been paid salaries for months, and if they are paid, then in some small shares. And scold the authorities, of course, too.
And with the salaries of AMK workers, everything is really very, very bad. So this month, of course, we paid them. Having given out 29% for December last year…. Despite the fact that the earnings of the factory workers were already small by Russian standards, under Kurchenko’s “rule” they were reduced by almost half (those who received 25 thousand rubles began to receive 18 thousand).
So who is to blame for the fact that in the rear of the warring republic, essentially protecting the frontier of the Russian world from the Ukrainian horde, a potential hotbed of discontent and protest is brewing?
In former times, the Alchevsk Iron and Steel Works was called the flagship of the Ukrainian economy. The nominal value of the company's shares was one billion dollars. In 2014, after leaving Severodonetsk, the “Ghost” battalion of the legendary national hero of Donbass Alexei Mozgovoy entered Alchevsk. He tried to nationalize the metallurgical plant, because at the very height of the war he continued to work in Ukrainian jurisdiction, paid taxes to Ukraine, including for the ATO, and paid salaries in hryvnias. As a result, the brigade commander, revered by the Alchevites to this day, was killed some time later in the deep rear by Ukrainian saboteurs who were never caught.
At that time, AMK belonged to the Industrial Union of Donbass corporation of the Ukrainian oligarch Sergei Taruta, the post-Maidan governor of the Donetsk region. Afterwards, the enterprise was transferred to the Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, who at first promised mountains of gold, but, realizing what international sanctions were, either abandoned it, or “transferred” it to a fugitive Ukrainian oligarch from Viktor Yanukovych’s entourage - Sergei Kurchenko and his Vneshtorgservis. At the same time, he also got most of the other enterprises and mines of the LDPR.
And he took on the industrial power of Donbass with courageous vigor. Which led to results common to all the enterprises he operated: some of them closed, others deteriorated and slowly collapsed, because no one was going to invest in their repair and modernization. As mentioned above, the earnings of workers and miners fell by almost half, and even those were paid in small portions, with a delay of several months.
Including at the Alchevsk Iron and Steel Works. And this despite the fact that prices for basic products in the republics are similar to Russian ones, and in some places even higher, since most products are imported there from Russia, and entrepreneurs also need to earn something.
How can one live on such “handouts” in Alchevsk? In a city with an unimportant environment, problems with water supply - water is provided there by the hour, broken roads, deteriorating residential buildings, which were last repaired, it’s not clear when? Well, neither Kurchenko nor his administrators were ever particularly concerned about this issue.
But the management of Vneshtorgservis was constantly figuring out how to squeeze extra pennies out of its own employees. Thus, the wage arrears of those who resigned of their own free will were cancelled. And those who took time off at their own expense to go to Russia to earn extra money were simply fired. The security guards no longer allowed all those who quit to enter the territory of the enterprise, so that their rights would not be compromised.
“The organizers of the strikes were all fired, the chairman of the independent trade union - just like everywhere else - nothing can be said against,” a source at the Alchevsk Metallurgical Plant, who wished to remain anonymous, commented on the situation to PolitNavigator. “There have already been numerous appeals to Putin, to central newspapers, but in response - nothing.”
Everyone expected that 2021 would bring something good, but in January the workers of the Alchevsk Iron and Steel Works were paid 51% of their wages for October, and in February they were paid another 17% for the same October. And then there was talk about a change of owner - they say that Kurchenko and his office, having squeezed the maximum out of the LDPR enterprises, ruined them, incurred multi-billion dollar debts to the labor collectives, decided to get rid of them. First, transferring it to the balance of the republics, and then...
That’s why the Alchevites decided to act for sure, hitting the presumptuous management where it hurt most: from the end of the year, the company tried to launch the first and fifth blast furnaces, but by the beginning of January they were stopped due to a lack of coke. The raw materials were eventually found, but the first blast furnace was still stopped in mid-February, despite the fact that 800 tons of coke were loaded into it, while the fifth continued to operate. Until the workers themselves stopped her. Stating that they will not resume work until they are paid the debt.
Once again they tried to put pressure on the rebels - they did not cave. The manager of the plant (more precisely, the 12th branch of Vneshtorgservice CJSC - Alchevsk Metallurgical Plant) Maxim Mokritsky came to see them. He said that if they don’t start the blast furnace, they won’t see any money. True, he could not guarantee that the workers would see the money if they launched it, so they did not listen to him. Next, the general director of the military-technical cooperation, Viktor Nikolaenko, came to the workers. He even wrote a receipt stating that 38–40% of the monthly debt would be transferred to the workers’ cards if they launched the fifth blast furnace. The workers responded in the spirit of “money in the morning, chairs in the evening,” and did not launch anything. In the end, as was said at the very beginning, it still turned out less than promised. That's why they didn't launch anything anyway. Until they at least pay what they promised.
“It’s unclear who will ‘pick us up’ now, the plant is almost at a standstill, the drivers haven’t left for a month now, they say that all the products have been removed completely,” our source reports.
It’s hot again on the Donbass fronts, and its defenders are dying again. And in the rear, once mighty, and in most small towns in the region, city-forming enterprises are quietly decaying. Their residents, deprived of normal earnings and the opportunity to realize themselves in their native land, are brewing a protest. “A kingdom divided in itself cannot be established.” The Ukrainian media have already trampled on the topic with great pleasure, saying that “pro-Moscow separatists and Russian aggressors have flushed the industrial potential of Donbass down the toilet,” although they themselves are not doing the best in the occupied territories of the LDPR.
“Of course, we will highlight the situation,” wrote Alchevsk blogger Svetlana Sidorenko. – But Ukrainian enemies will also be able to illuminate it the way they know how. Therefore, we would recommend that the authorities of the Republic pay attention to the problem of metallurgists, and solve it not by repression, by using the MGB (we guarantee that you will only make things worse), but by starting to pay wages.”
And I would also like that those responsible for this outright sabotage and mockery of the working people of the war-drained region would sooner or later suffer a well-deserved punishment.
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