Russian Agro-Food Workers' Hunger Strike Ends with Wages Paid

Posted to the IUF website 24-Jan-2005

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The hunger strike by 41 workers at the ZAO Kubanets agro-food complex has ended with the strikers receiving payment in full from the local authorities for the three years' wages they had been owed (click here for background). The IUF Moscow office has been supporting and publicizing their struggle since December, when the workers took industrial action. When the hunger strike was launched four days ago, IUF representatives on the spot publicized the action in the media and contributed glucose and medicine. IUF intervention, including the general secretariat's messages to President Putin and the provincial governor, helped build pressure at a time when the issue of widespread and chronic unpaid wages and salaries is again being highlighted through a series of hunger strikes at the Ivdel engineering works in Sverdlovsk region.

"If you live in Russia", writes IUF Moscow, "a one-month strike and four days of hunger strike are needed to get wages paid which have been owed for three years. With IUF support the long fight of these agro-food workers is over but thousands of fellow workers are still waiting for their money." The Kubanets workers and their union have thanked the IUF for its support and send solidarity greetings to IUF unions worldwide.