>The Guardian February 23, 2000 > >Russian workers defeat corruption > > >Workers at a Moscow pharmaceutical plant had been guarding the premises >and manning the picket for two weeks when in the early hours of February >12, 2000, they were attacked by a group of armed private security guards in >balaclavas. > >Seven people were injured as the result of the attack. All this has >followed from an appointment of a new director without consultation or >agreement with the workers. > >Unlike many plants in present-day Russia, the workers at this particular >enterprise enjoyed high wages and stable working conditions. The plant paid >their taxes in full. It had heavily invested in the upgrading of equipment >to the tune of US$21 million in four years and its performance was the best >in the industry. > >Evidently that was the reason for trying to introduce a new director with a >view to privatising the plant. The new guy and his security thugs had not >made it through the door, however. > >Gennadi Zuganov, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) >leader and a presidential candidate visited the plant and had a meeting >with the workers. > >Addressing the workers, Mr Zuganov said that another property >redistribution was taking place "where the last well-managed working >collectives and enterprises are being grabbed by unscrupulous people". > >Mr Zuganov told the workers that he had met the person responsible for the >director's appointment and demanded immediate measures be taken to >normalise the situation at the plant. > >An official request will be sent to the Government on behalf of the CPRF >fraction in the Duma with a debate in the Duma itself. > >Mr Zuganov also said that similar attacks on state-owned enterprises had >taken place in other places — the Vyborg Paper factory saw the same heavy- >handed attack on workers and state property. > >As a result of the workers' resistance to turn their plant into another >source of enriching the few the newly-appointed director has officially >resigned. > >Back to index page > ><!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN"> ><HTML> ><HEAD> > ><META content=text/html;charset=iso-8859-1 http-equiv=Content-Type> ><META content='"MSHTML 4.72.3612.1706"' name=GENERATOR> ></HEAD> ><BODY bgColor=#ffffff> ><DIV> </DIV> ><DIV> </DIV> ><DIV><HEAD> ><CENTER> ><H3><EM>The Guardian</EM> February 23, 2000</H3></CENTER> ><P><BR><FONT size=+2><STRONG>Russian workers defeat >corruption</STRONG></FONT><BR><PRE><B>Workers at a Moscow pharmaceutical plant >had been guarding the premises >and manning the picket for two weeks when in the early hours of February >12, 2000, they were attacked by a group of armed private security guards in >balaclavas.</B> > >Seven people were injured as the result of the attack. All this has >followed from an appointment of a new director without consultation or >agreement with the workers. > >Unlike many plants in present-day Russia, the workers at this particular >enterprise enjoyed high wages and stable working conditions. The plant paid >their taxes in full. It had heavily invested in the upgrading of equipment >to the tune of US$21 million in four years and its performance was the best >in the industry. > >Evidently that was the reason for trying to introduce a new director with a >view to privatising the plant. The new guy and his security thugs had not >made it through the door, however. > >Gennadi Zuganov, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) >leader and a presidential candidate visited the plant and had a meeting >with the workers. > >Addressing the workers, Mr Zuganov said that another property >redistribution was taking place "where the last well-managed working >collectives and enterprises are being grabbed by unscrupulous people". > >Mr Zuganov told the workers that he had met the person responsible for the >director's appointment and demanded immediate measures be taken to >normalise the situation at the plant. > >An official request will be sent to the Government on behalf of the CPRF >fraction in the Duma with a debate in the Duma itself. > >Mr Zuganov also said that similar attacks on state-owned enterprises had >taken place in other places — the Vyborg Paper factory saw the same >heavyhanded attack on workers and state property. > __________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi ___________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe/unsubscribe messages mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________
