Showing posts with label migrant workers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label migrant workers. Show all posts
Thursday, 23 April 2009
Prosecutors Taking a Harder Line on Wage Arrears
Prosecutors are under orders to bring the maximum possible charges against corporate executives who are delaying salary payments amid a sharp rise in labor law violations, a source in the Investigative Committee said. The Prosecutor General's Office has been told to take a harder line on labor violations, including wage arrears, and some directors have already been arrested and punished. Prosecutors should threaten managers with the maximum possible punishments — from fines to being banned from managerial posts, and if warranted, criminal charges, the source said. The situation with wage arrears is not improving, and the Prosecutor General's Office is stepping up its efforts to investigate such claims, spokeswoman Marina Gridneva said. In March, according to figures from the State Statistics Service, wage arrears rose 8.3 percent to 8.75 billion rubles ($258 million), with about 500,000 people not receiving their full salaries. According to figures from the prosecutor's office, in February two criminal cases were opened because of delayed wages; in March, five criminal cases were filed and eight directors were banned; in April, eight cases were filed, with two directors found guilty and six were banned. According to figures given to Vedomosti by the Federal Labor and Employment Service, 34 executives were prohibited from holding management posts in the first quarter of 2009, and one was found guilty of criminal labor violations. In all of 2008, complaints over wage arrears led to 23 criminal cases, eight convictions and 149 disqualified mangers. Prosecutors in the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district are looking into a major case, in which a court ordered that Sergei Stepanov, the former deputy general director of Severnaya Ekspeditsiya, be held in custody. He is suspected of not paying 70 million rubles in salaries because of pecuniary self-interest. Investigators suspect that Stepanov, who was acting as general director and knew of the unpaid wages, paid out more than 100 million rubles to suppliers. Court bailiffs froze company property worth that much to protect the employee's rights. Larisa Yeropkina, a spokeswoman for the Yamal-Nenets branch of the Investigative Committee, said Stepanov was the first corporate director arrested there for not paying wages and that while other cases have since been opened his is unprecedented because of the amount of arrears. Proceedings over wage arrears at the idling BasElCement Pikalevo factory have also gone to court. Prosecutors in Boksitogorsk on April 15 filed a suit on administrative charges against the plant's director, Anatoly Maslikov, who faces disqualification for 2009 arrears of around 17 million rubles. Maslikov is trying to find the funds, but not everything is within his powers, said city prosecutor Fyodor Piryatinsky, adding that the arrears were more the problem of BasElCement shareholders. Piryatinsky said all available cash at the business was going toward salaries and that so far criminal charges have not been filed against Maslikov. BasElCement Pikalevo spokeswoman Svetlana Andreyeva said staff were paid 37 percent of their March salaries and that there was no debt for February. The punishment for executives depends on the length of delays, said Dmitry Kofanov, a lawyer at NS Consulting. If the arrears are for more than a month, executives can be banned from working for up to three years; if it is more than two months, they face a ban of up to five years or jail time. To avoid delays, a manger can halt production, reduce working hours for no more than half a year, fire staff or file for bankruptcy. Andreyeva said her company was a vitally important employer in the city, making layoffs extremely troublesome. Management is in constant talks with unions on job cuts, and the general director signed an order halting the firing of 200 workers. Now management is trying to operate at zero profit.
Saturday, 14 February 2009
For migrant workers, crisis is hitting hard
The economic crisis has led to the halting of construction work on sites across Moscow and the rest of Russia, forcing the unemployment of tens of thousands of migrants from the poorest countries of the former Soviet Union.
Rustam Nargyzyev left his native Tajikistan for Russia, dreaming of making easy money to sustain his family back home in a modern day gold rush of frenetic construction in 21st-century Moscow.
Although his jobs over the last two years have always been on the black market, he never had to deal with contractors who did not pay him for his work.
But Rustam has been out of work since the economic crisis unleashed a whirlwind of havoc amongst the half-built shiny business centres and glitzy housing developments sprouting up throughout the city.
The now-unemployed construction foreman has had to repeatedly beg his former employer to pay him the wages he is owed for his last four months of work.
Since October, he and 27 members of a crew hired to plaster the walls of a large parking deck have not received a single rouble. The gates of the construction site have been padlocked.
The contractor "owes 1 million roubles (22,000 euros) to the 27 men who have worked here for two months. We haven't received a kopek and we were simply driven out of here," said Rustam.
He now dreams of only one thing - "returning home".
For its part, the contractor has told the workers it cannot pay, since the developer of the project has gone bankrupt.
Rustam, who is now staying with friends, travelled day after day to the construction site to convince the contractor, MIK-2007, to pay the wages of his men. Without work, his debts have mounted to around 1,000 euros.
"I'm not treating you like an asshole! I told you that you will be paid when the client pays us!" said Ivan Vassilyevich, the deputy director of MIK-2007, speaking to his former employee as they stood at the snow-covered site.
And Rustam and his plastering crew are not the only ones suffering.
According to a report by Mayor Yury Luzhkov's office issued last December, the city in 2008 had 2 million foreign workers, 90 percent of whom were illegal.
Since autumn, when the financial crisis began to hit Russia, organisations monitoring immigrant workers have noted a skyrocketing number of delayed or cancelled payments, a situation against which migrant workers are powerless.
"In December 2007 there were seven complaints against debtors. In December 2008 ... there were 48 cases. This is very strong growth," said Gauhar Dzhurayeva, the president of the Law and Migration Association.
Meanwhile, the Association of Tajik Migrant Workers reported receiving over 6,000 calls for assistance this past December, while it recorded only about 1,800 such calls over the same period in 2007.
"There are five children in our family. I am the oldest," said Argen Abditalipov, an 18-year-old Kyrgyz man who has not been paid since December, but who nonetheless does not want to leave.
"There, in Kyrgyzstan, there is no work and when there is, the salary is very low."
And Russian authorities do not seem to be willing to help the very people who have manned the building boom and put their skyscrapers into the sky let alone fight the abuse they face.
"Objectively, we expect an increase in crimes that could be committed by migrant workers," Deputy Interior Minister Mikhail Sukhodolsky said. "When a person is without means of sustenance... some choose the path of crime", he said, calling on the police "to be more vigilant."
Rustam Nargyzyev left his native Tajikistan for Russia, dreaming of making easy money to sustain his family back home in a modern day gold rush of frenetic construction in 21st-century Moscow.
Although his jobs over the last two years have always been on the black market, he never had to deal with contractors who did not pay him for his work.
But Rustam has been out of work since the economic crisis unleashed a whirlwind of havoc amongst the half-built shiny business centres and glitzy housing developments sprouting up throughout the city.
The now-unemployed construction foreman has had to repeatedly beg his former employer to pay him the wages he is owed for his last four months of work.
Since October, he and 27 members of a crew hired to plaster the walls of a large parking deck have not received a single rouble. The gates of the construction site have been padlocked.
The contractor "owes 1 million roubles (22,000 euros) to the 27 men who have worked here for two months. We haven't received a kopek and we were simply driven out of here," said Rustam.
He now dreams of only one thing - "returning home".
For its part, the contractor has told the workers it cannot pay, since the developer of the project has gone bankrupt.
Rustam, who is now staying with friends, travelled day after day to the construction site to convince the contractor, MIK-2007, to pay the wages of his men. Without work, his debts have mounted to around 1,000 euros.
"I'm not treating you like an asshole! I told you that you will be paid when the client pays us!" said Ivan Vassilyevich, the deputy director of MIK-2007, speaking to his former employee as they stood at the snow-covered site.
And Rustam and his plastering crew are not the only ones suffering.
According to a report by Mayor Yury Luzhkov's office issued last December, the city in 2008 had 2 million foreign workers, 90 percent of whom were illegal.
Since autumn, when the financial crisis began to hit Russia, organisations monitoring immigrant workers have noted a skyrocketing number of delayed or cancelled payments, a situation against which migrant workers are powerless.
"In December 2007 there were seven complaints against debtors. In December 2008 ... there were 48 cases. This is very strong growth," said Gauhar Dzhurayeva, the president of the Law and Migration Association.
Meanwhile, the Association of Tajik Migrant Workers reported receiving over 6,000 calls for assistance this past December, while it recorded only about 1,800 such calls over the same period in 2007.
"There are five children in our family. I am the oldest," said Argen Abditalipov, an 18-year-old Kyrgyz man who has not been paid since December, but who nonetheless does not want to leave.
"There, in Kyrgyzstan, there is no work and when there is, the salary is very low."
And Russian authorities do not seem to be willing to help the very people who have manned the building boom and put their skyscrapers into the sky let alone fight the abuse they face.
"Objectively, we expect an increase in crimes that could be committed by migrant workers," Deputy Interior Minister Mikhail Sukhodolsky said. "When a person is without means of sustenance... some choose the path of crime", he said, calling on the police "to be more vigilant."
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