On December 16, a mass picket of employees of budgetary institutions against wage cuts was held in Surgut. More than 400 participants joined the official group of the event in the social network VKontakte, but much less came to the square in front of the Aurora cinema. The correspondent of "7x7" visited the picket.
"I am a working pensioner. I can't show myself, do you understand?"
Seven police officers were on duty at the square. By noon, about 40 picket participants arrived, one third of them were the organizers themselves from the Russian United Labor Front, representatives of the local branch of the organization “Working Youth of Siberia”. Some came with their slogans, someone was given posters by the organizers: "To state employees — a decent salary", "Hands off our salaries", "Salary according to work!". Many discussed the events in France (the protest movement of the "yellow vests", which began in the fall of 2018; the initial requirement was to reduce fuel prices) and the last video of Alexey Navalny "Yes, we want it like in Paris" on YouTube.
Participants stood with posters for about half an hour and began to disperse. The organizers have suggested that such low activity is related to the fact that state employees are intimidated at work.
"There are few workers at the rally, half of them are representatives of the public. Scared. During the collection of signatures [with the demand to reject the draft decree] they [state employees] were called on the carpet. They said, "we don’t want any signatures here," said the organizer of the mass picket Sergey Chichkanov.
The picket participants refused to communicate with the «7x7» correspondent, many hid their faces behind the posters.
"I am a working pensioner. I can't show myself, do you understand?" said one of the participants.
How it all began
At the end of November, a draft decree from the Department of Labor and Employment of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug-Ugra on amendments to the Okrug Government Decree No. 431-p of November 3, 2016 "On the Requirements for Wage Systems for Employees of Public Institutions of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug-Ugra".
"As a result of the changes, employees will be deprived of a number of incentive payments and a lump sum payment (monthly payroll) for annual leave. Besides, the premium part of the salary will not exceed 20%. Thus, for an employee with a salary of 10,300 rubles per year, the loss of wages will be from 30 to 170 thousand rubles (previously, the premium part, depending on the amount of work performed, ranged from 50 to 70%)," wrote organizers of the picket in the group "Surgut state-paid employees FOR decent salary!".
Sources of the ura.ru agency in the government of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug reported that the initiator of the changes was the Ugra Finance Department, the heads of state-financed institutions hold meetings where they are persuading employees to switch to a new wage system: they are supposed to receive exactly the same amount.
There were no official comments on the subject of changes in the wages of the Ugra state employees from the government at the time of writing, the governor has not yet signed the resolution. It is assumed that the new wage system should begin to operate on January 1, 2019.
Nikolay Orlov, author's photo, «7x7»
