"What Can You Buy For Hundred Rubles?" Homel Builders Threaten With Strike

People have been working honestly for a month, and there's no money.

According to the contract, the salary in the organization is to be paid from the 25th to 30th of each month. However, this time the salary in Homelpramstroi was delayed. According to the workers, their problems began several months ago. The salaries in a number of units began to fall, in some cases barely exceeding three hundred rubles. Now the payment of money has been delayed, Hard-Hitting News reports.

Builder Aliaksandr says:

- Many of us have loans, and every day of delay results in penalties. And the children need something to eat. The reason for the delay is not disclosed to us, they only refer to the fact that our partners also owe us. But it does not make us feel any better. We have been working honestly for a month, and there is no money.

The workers and their families began to file complaints to different authorities - from the construction workers' union to the administration of Lukashenka. Everywhere they were promised that the things would be sorted out.

In the morning of June 5, the workers involved in the construction of a kindergarten in the 104th district and an apartment building in Fiadziunin Street went on strike. They came to the construction sites, but did not start work. The leadership came to the brigades at the kindergarten, the commissioning of which is scheduled for the near future. The workers were promised that they would be paid at least part of the money. After lunch, the builders started to work.

On June 6, the workers were given an "advance payment" of 100 rubles each. There is no information when the rest of the salary is paid.

"What can you buy for a hundred rubles? – the workers shrug their shoulders. – You know the prices in the shop. If you change a hundred ruble note – then the money is gone. The foremen are trying to discourage construction workers from going on strike, claiming that as a result, they're going to lose their earnings. The workers have different opinions about this. Many construction workers say they want to quit their jobs and find work in Russia or Poland.

Recently, the construction industry of Belarus has been experiencing bad times. Homelpramstroi has been "optimized," a number of departments and production bases have been liquidated and combined. There is an outflow of builders outside Belarus.

We failed to contact the Homelpramstroi administration. The receptionist only reported that all of them had left for the meeting in the regional executive committee. It was unknown when he would return. When asked whether the employees' salaries would be fully paid, we were told: "This is all we are doing now."

The oldest builders of Homel

Homelpramstroi is the oldest construction enterprise of Homel. The Homel Regional Construction Trust was established immediately after the formation of the region in 1938. Less than three weeks after the liberation of our city, in December 1943, the trust was re-created. It was the regional construction trust that carried out the main works on the post-war reconstruction of Homel. At that time, women mainly worked at the construction sites. And the oldest worker of the trust Ivan Prakofiyeu was 90 years old.

In 1953, the regional construction trust was modified into the construction trust № 9. It was its specialists who built houses in the style of historicism in the present Lenin Avenue, in 1954, built the Homel Regional Drama Theatre. In 1957 it was reorganized into trust #10. In 1956, the builders of the trust assembled the Homel TV tower. In 1961 the construction of the first panel houses in Homel began. Trust № 10 built such industrial giants of Homel as the Tsentralit plant, the Homel Chemical Plant and many others. In 1977, the trust was transformed into the Homelpromstroi association. In the past, it was headed by such legends of Homel construction complex as Ivan Zalatukhin (1968-1976) and Ihar Nialiubin (1976-1998).

With Nialiubin, the association began to diversify the markets of construction services and work outside the Republic of Belarus. In recent years, Homelpromstroi had building contracts in Turkmenistan.