Politician Alexei Navalny announced the creation of the Promzona (‘industrial zone’) Trade Union to protect the rights of Russian working prisoners and employees of colonies. He has already achieved replacing stools with chairs with backs for sewers in the colony in Vladimir, where he is serving his sentence. The Promzona Telegram channel reported this.
Politician Alexei Navalny has created the Promzona Trade Union of working prisoners and employees of colonies. Navalny is serving his sentence in colony No. 6 in Melekhovo, Vladimir Oblast. At his request, stools have already been replaced with chairs with backs for a sewing shop’s workers. Navalny wants to achieve this in all Russian penitentiaries.
"I am an employee of the colony. A sewer. And other prisoners are also workers. And the guards are also employees of the colony. We are not different in terms of labor rights. We can create a trade union to protect our rights," Navalny wrote on Twitter.
According to Navalny, when he announced the trade union’s creation, the colony administration threatened him with administrative liability, and the prisoners were afraid to join the trade union.
In March, Alexei Navalny was sentenced to nine years in prison for fraud and contempt of court. He was assigned to a colony in Melekhovo.
In July, he complained about "educational activities": sewers would sit on stools under a portrait of Vladimir Putin for seven hours. And on Sunday, they would sit on a bench for 10 hours. The politician believes that such events can "educate" only a "crooked disabled person with a bad back."
Navalny filed a lawsuit against the colony because its deputy head refused to disclose the customer of the products that the prisoners sew.