On the eve of the airstrike

Employees of Pulkovo Airport, dissatisfied with wages and working conditions, will come out with their demands on the enterprise administration building on October 3. The organizers of the action - the leaders of the airport ground service workers' trade union - claim unprecedented pressure from the management of Northern Capital Gateway LLC, but they are not going to abandon the risky undertaking. They have already sent a letter to Georgy Poltavchenko, at the same time, the company’s management calls the claims against them unfounded and claims that the average salary is about 40 thousand rubles.

Airport workers must protest today

Vladimir Makarov looks to the future with optimism

“If you don’t like it, quit”
VVSS employees, according to the deputy chairman of the trade union Vladimir Makarov, demand: payment of indexation debt; providing a workplace certification card, as well as an explanation of how management was able to carry out the certification without the employees noticing; providing free parking spaces for cars, as well as transportation from and to the metro; stopping outsourcing and increasing salaries.
“There is no workplace certification card, despite the fact that there are quite a lot of harmful factors (noise, electromagnetic radiation, radiation, etc.),” Makarov told Novaya. — Although by law the employer is obliged, based on the commission’s findings, to either pay extra or take measures to reduce harm to acceptable limits. Conversations about, say, wait, an inspection is being carried out, have been going on for 2.5 months. Nobody saw this certification commission. The inspection service has a very high level of harmfulness - radiation, radiation, the guys stand at the workplace for 12 hours. At the same time, they are paid an additional 4% of their wages for noise.”
The enterprise OJSC Pulkovo Airport, the trade unionist believes, last raised wages in January 2009. A year and a half ago, all employees were transferred to a new structure - Northern Capital Gateway LLC, but indexation was never carried out.
Makarov is outraged that the airport administration does not make contact with the trade union: “The conversation is short: if you don’t like it, quit.” The average salary, according to him, is 25 thousand rubles.
A few days before the strike, Makarov claims, the management of the enterprise began to put pressure on the dissatisfied, promising them problems and threatening them with police batons. It is noteworthy that the administration of the Moskovsky district initially approved the rally in front of the Pulkovo-Sky building, but later withdrew the permission, explaining the refusal “by the need to ensure security at the airport during the arrival from October 2 to 5 of the delegation of the federal state of Saxony, headed by Prime Minister Stanislav Tillich.” Therefore, a street action under the slogan “We are people, not consumables in the hands of an employer!” will take the form of a meeting with parliamentarians: Legislative Assembly deputy Sergei Malkov confirmed his participation in it. Makarov, however, does not rule out provocations from pro-Kremlin youth organizations.

To the point of fainting
The airport management rejects all claims, stating that the information coming from the trade union is incorrect.
“We cannot forbid them to talk about it - they probably have their own reason for this. Any employee can come and chat with us,” HR Director Yana Donskaya told Novaya. “We are checked by the state labor inspectorate, the transport prosecutor’s office... If we do something illegal, employees always have the opportunity to talk to us or go to court.”
As for the certification of workplaces, according to Donskoy, by the end of the year the enterprise “will complete this process.” The airport representative also denied the assertion that management is unwilling to index wages.
“In January 2009, they worked at Pulkovo OJSC, and our enterprise LLC Air Gates of the Northern Capital has existed since April 29, 2010,” she explained.
“We are increasing the income of our employees; they were already paid a bonus for the first eight months of work.”
Donskaya also denied rumors about the abolition of seniority. According to her, those employees who already have it will keep it. “We simply adhere to such a policy that people need to be paid for the growth of professionalism, and it is not always related to work experience,” she added.
The average salary in the company, according to the manager, is 40 thousand rubles.
The leadership of the BBC is not going to meet with the deputies, since they “did not receive an official invitation.”
City Parliament deputy Sergei Malkov, in turn, notes that “people are very determined, the situation is close to getting out of control; provocative rumors are being spread about possible unrest.”
“The last wage indexation there was carried out when the volume of work was 3-4 times less, the situation with the installations that check luggage is unclear (background radiation can be felt at a distance of 10 meters), the administration refuses to conclude a collective agreement,” the parliamentarian outlined his vision of what is happening. - In addition, there are no normal working conditions, people work 12 hours, and they don’t even have a rest room! There were even cases when employees fainted from overwork.”
At the same time, he believes that “this story directly threatens the safety of those who use air transport services.”
“The problem goes beyond the boundaries of this local zone,” says the people’s representative.

Alexandra GARMAZHAPOVA