"Everything Can Change In A Moment"

Workers have reported on the situation at Hrodna Azot.

Hrodna Azot does not disappear from the news feeds of the Belarusian media. There are constant accidents of different scale at the plant, and shops are stopped. Also, last week it was reported that the plant was short of 350 specialists.

The Charter97.org website asked employees of the plant to tell what's going on at one of the flagships of the Belarusian industry.

How does the personnel shortage affect the work of Hrodna Azot?

"It's absolutely true that there is a lack of specialists. It's a big problem to find a qualified employee for the position of an engineer and technician. There is information that one of the shops could not find specialists from one of their own and had to look for them in the neighboring shop. If the holes cannot be plugged at the engineers and technicians level, then as a result of vertical promotion there are gaps among the middle and lower ranks.

You have to admit, it's easier to find someone on a salary of about 2,000 rubles, than to persuade someone to work for 400-500 rubles, which is what a person from the street would get," one of the workers told Charter97.org.

The workers blame the human resources department for all this:

"They may be hoping to recruit workers from among the graduates of universities and technical colleges. However, this means that there will be an influx of a large number of low-skilled workers, the consequences of which we can only guess".

"There is a shortage of workers, in the long term it will affect the work of the enterprise," confirms an employee of the company.

There is a lot of information on the web about malfunctions at the enterprise. Why is this happening?

"It is important to understand that the plant is not new, that everything has a limit of strength. While we are buying and replacing on a massive scale at the level of control systems, the situation with the main pipelines is deplorable. There are constant leaks, there are patches everywhere. It is impossible to detect all hidden defects. At any time there may occur a depressurization, while it is impossible to replace all the pipelines in full," one of the Hrodna Azot employees tells Charter97.org.

"People have no desire to do anything, to do their best. Everyone comes just to sit for 12 hours and go home," sums up the company employee.

Have the sanctions affected the work of the enterprise?

Hrodna Azot employees agree that the restrictive measures have affected the work of the plant:

"At the moment, the impact of sanctions is felt at the level of product sales. Just recently, there was information about the shutdown of the shop of nitric acid. This happened because of the full warehouse, the same situation is with urea. Now, the problem is only with the shipment, but soon we will have problems with spare parts, which will simply be impossible to buy because of the sanctions".

"The administration has to look for intermediary firms to ship the products. There are problems with the purchase of raw materials," a Hrodna Azot employee says.

How do the workers feel? Are they satisfied with the state of affairs?

"There are still those who are ready to do something, but they don't want to stay in this swamp either. Lots of them are going to quit their jobs," says the interlocutor of Charter97.org.

"The discontent has not gone anywhere. If the authorities make a mistake, the consequences could be very serious", says the employee.

There is unverified information that the company will have to lay off some of its top managers. Is there not enough money even for them?

"There will always be enough money for the managers. If the bosses show weakness, the situation of August and October 2020 will repeat. Director Liashenka understands this. There is enough money for carrot and stick now, but you can't even guess what is going to happen afterwards. Everything can change in a moment," said the worker of Hrodna Azot.

"The enterprise has to survive. That's why a global layoff is coming," sums up the interlocutor of Charter97.org.

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