MAZ workers to take two-week unpaid leave?

Workers will lose almost half of their wages.

Workers of the bus production department of the Minsk Automobile Plant (MAZ) worked only three days last week. They have to take two-week unpaid leave from March 23. Only repair brigades will work, praca-by.info learnt from MAZ employees.

“They say we can be absent from the beginning of next week till April 6. You can quit if you don't like it,” members of the electronics trade union that work at MAZ say. “For example, a lathe operator earns 7 million rubles and he will lose half of his wages.”

Many workers are angry, but they don't take any actions. Most of them are going to retire soon, and young people are mostly from other cities who live in workers' dormitory and fear to lose it.

Workers say the plant hasn't received orders for buses and trucks since January.

“The situation with truck production is bad for the last 6 months. The maximum output is 50 vehicles per quarter. In better times, we used to assemble 90 vehicles per shift and 130 per two shifts. But now people come to work and just sit. The truck production department has been afloat since 2013 only due to bus production. The plant managed to sell buses to Sochi for the Olympics, other Russian regions and Central Asia. We haven't had sales since November and December. Only the first shift works. If you are supposed to work second shift, you must take unpaid leave,” workers say. “The staff in our department was cut from 400 to 70 people. About 5,000 people work at the plant now against 17,000 workers 18 months ago.”

Praca-by.info failed to get an official comment from the MAZ management. No one answered phones at the reception office and personnel department. A representative of the sales department said production facilities didn't work on Friday, but she neither confirmed nor declined information about unpaid holidays.

Many companies work short weeks or force workers to take unpaid leaves. In the first days of March, charter97.org received complaints from Gomselmash, the Automobile Units Plant in Asipovichy, the Concrete Products Plant in Svetlahorsk, the Tractor Parts and Units Plant in Babruisk, Mogilevtransmash, Strommashina, the Minsk Tractor Plant, Gomeldrev, the Minsk Bearing Plant, Belarusian Railway, Vitebsk Products company and others.

Photo: bymedia.net