Workers in Ukraine occupy engineering plant

international | worker & community struggles and protests | news report Tuesday February 03, 2009 09:35 by zaraz.org chapeye at gmail dot com

Today at 9:30 more than 300 workers occupied the administrative building of Kherson Engineering Plant. The workers demand payment of wages, nationalization of the plant without compensation to its owner and are decisively inclined to occupy the building until complete fulfillment of their demands. During occupation no worker has injured. Factory guards did not resist seriously. The situation is controlled by yesterday elected workers council. The police has not yet appeared near the building.

Workers occupy factory in Kherson, Ukraine

At this moment the council is meeting in the former cabinet of a technical director. Leonid Nimchinov, the chair of the workers council, says that these events must be widely spread and calls workers from other plants throughout Ukraine to display solidarity and support each other. In the near future he is going to address this call to workers of Lviv Bus Plant and other factories.

The main demands of protesting workers:

- payment of wage arrears (near 4.5 million Ukrainian hryvnias);

- nationalization of the plant without compensation to its owner;

- the state-secured plant’s production distribution – high-quality farm machinery

In case of ignoring their demands workers are ready to turn to the toughest forms of protest.

Background: on February 2, 300 workers of Kherson Engineering Plant started protest action against non-payment of wages since September 2008 and actual destruction of the plant by its owners. During one of the previous meetings with the workers Ms. Pugacheva, the alternate director, said that the owners were not going to save the plant. “Why did you stick to this plant so much?” she said. The workers hold a meeting near the entrance and elected 5 representatives to the Workers Council and its chair Aleksey Nimchinov who will lead the future struggle and negotiate on behalf of the workers.