Employees of the Oryol district’s ambulance stations in Oryol Oblast began a work-to-rule to attract the attention of the authorities to low salaries of paramedics. The information about the strike that began on July 15 was confirmed by its organizer, coordinator of union "Deystvie" («Action») Dmitry Seryogin.
As Seryogin said, health workers wanted to stop working in understaffed ambulance crews, but decided not to do that during inspections, but to start a «work-to-rule»,which is a formal performance of duties prescribed in the employment contract. According to Seryogin, five inspections are held at the moment. They are carried out by two prosecutor’s offices (the regional one and that of Sovetsky district), the Investigative Committee of Russia, Roszdravnadzor and labor inspection.
— We are beginning the work-to-rule in two phases. Since today [July 15], the union committee of "Deystvie", 4–5 people, works on one wage. After that, in August, some of our colleagues are going to join us. There are 34 people in our union. Unfortunately, not everyone can work on one wage, due to low salaries they are forced to work time-and-a-half and more, just to pay for loans, mortgages, feed children, — Seryogin told "7x7".
At the end of May, work-to-rule was announced by the ambulance workers in Penza. They demanded pay rise to the regional average wage and normal working conditions. In July, the Ministry of Health of Penza Oblast began to implement the program of gradual increase of salaries to physicians due to the agreement with the participants of the strike.