Do not carry and do not sow: Russian factories are reducing the working week

Is this effectiveness or hopelessness?

Large Russian enterprises, mainly in the field of civil engineering, transfer their employees to a four -day working week. On Friday, July 25, Kamaz and Gas reported this. For them, this is a way to minimize dismissal and survive a difficult economic situation.

In connection with the fall of demand and an uncomfortable exchange rate

In the West, the introduction of a four -day working week is discussed, but without loss in salaries. It is assumed that at three days off a week, workers will be able to build a balance between work and personal life better. It is better to take care of your health, spend time with your family, receive additional education. As a result, their work will be more productive at lower time.

The Russian four -day is an attempt to avoid mass contractions and delays in salaries.

- They said that anti -crisis measures will be valid from September 1 to January 1, and further decisions will depend on whether there will be sales markets. So far, we have engineers and technical workers on a four-day. That is, they will take one day a week at will without detention. On subsidies for meals, breaking buses, all sorts of surcharges on the condemn this will not affect. So while some are losing, but not the majority, ” the employee of the Chelyabinsk electrometallurgical plant (CHEMK) tells the Novaya Gazeta Europe.

CHEMK produces 80% of Russian ferroalloys (iron alloys with silicon, manganese, chrome, etc., are used in steel smelting). The company has eight thousand workers. In 2024, the Prosecutor General’s office took the plant from the owners, now it is under the control of the Federal Property Management Agency.

In a commentary for Kommersant, the press service of the plant stated that a short working week will affect 1,200 people. They do not plan to reduce reductions at the plant, and the “anti-crisis program” is implemented “due to the significant volatility of the exchange rate, the developed adverse conditions in the markets of ferroalloy products, a significant drop in consumer demand and in order to ensure financial and economic sustainability”. The four -day is also touched by the employees of the Serovsky Ferroalloy Plant: The enterprise is located in the Sverdlovsk region, and is part of the CHEMK structure.

New trucks and cars are not needed, farmers are waiting for state support

For a four -day working week, large machine -building plants are now moving.

- How much salaries will be reduced, it will be clear in September. In August there will be a four -day, in September there is a three -day, but the operating mode is adjusted every month, changes are possible. The reason is problems due to sanctions, a fall in sales: all civilian enterprises have difficulties now. In our city, if Kamaz goes into a crisis, everyone has problems. I suppose, while people have reserves, 2022–2024 on KAMAZ were “fat” in terms of salaries: they started from 60 thousand, but someone received 150–170 each, and this is not a limit, ”says the interlocutor of Novaya Gazeta Europe, a KamAZ worker from Naberezhnye Chelnov.

The legendary manufacturer of trucks, KAMAZ, who gives work to three tens of thousands of people, this summer summed up the results of 2024: the company's net profit was reduced by 28 times. Accordingly, this year dividends on KAMAZ shares will not be paid.

The largest car manufacturer of Russia AvtoVAZ has more than thirty thousand employees, and four thousand hired in 2023 - considers the introduction of four days in the fall.

In the material of RBC, the situation is explained by a high key rate, tightening requirements for borrowers on car loans and a large volume of autoimport.

From July until the end of the year, the Yaroslavl Motor Plant (almost eight thousand employees) and the Yaroslavl diesel equipment plant (one and a half thousand workers) have been transferred to a four -day working week. According to the contour. Focus, both factories are affiliated with Nizhny Novgorod gas. A four -day at these enterprises is explained by a fall in demand for commercial transport.

From July 23 to November 24, the four -day four was announced at the Tikhvinsky carriage plant (Leningrad region, seven thousand employees) in connection with a general decrease in transportation on Russian railways.

Since August, four days a week will work at the St. Petersburg Tractor Plant (about 900 employees) due to a decrease in demand for agricultural machinery. Fontanka writes that the situation can be refunded when new state programs for agricultural support are earned, including those who suggest subsidies for farmers for the purchase of tractors.

The situation is similar to the largest manufacturer of agricultural vehicles Rostselmash (more than ten thousand employees). The company will not pay dividends on shares this year, the four-day was introduced in the spring of 2025. The co -owner of Rostselmash is a member of the LDPR Konstantin Babkin, so that the problems of Rostselmash and the crisis of Russian agricultural construction in the State Duma are raised by the leader of the LDPR Leonid Slutsky.

Avoiding dismissal

Economist Igor Lipsitz told Novaya Gazeta Europe that a four -day is a way for an enterprise to prevent more serious problems with workers. For example, in the coal industry there are now massive non -payment of salaries.

- At the St. Petersburg Economic Forum [the head of Sberbank], German Gref spoke of the collapse of investment activity: not a single new investment project, they only continue to finance the old ones. There are no new projects, equipment, equipment - this is why the crisis reached engineering, ”says Lipsitz.

Economic problems are probably just beginning.

- Ahead of the adoption of a new budget. [Valentina Speaker] Matvienko, speaking in the Federation Council, talked about the need to make it as economical as possible. A sequestration of the current budget is very possible. The Ministry of Finance has already announced that by the fall they will return to this issue. Military expenses will reduce little, and civilian costs strongly. This will mean a smaller amount of orders for the civilian economy.

Plants feel the compression of demand and try to somehow reduce their costs. A four -day working week is a 20% reduction in the wage fund.

The phenomena of the 90s are repeated: unpaid vacations, incomplete working week, ”Lipsits notes.

The portal administrator about the labor conflicts Antijob.net Andrei Savelyev notes that the four -day is beneficial to the employer.

—Mranscuration of personnel is the payment of a weekend benefit, from one to three salaries. Until recently, it was in the engineering that there were strong trade unions, so under the terms of collective agreements at some enterprises, it is necessary to pay more. The simple one can also be less beneficial to the enterprise than a four -day: workers do not work, but they need to pay about two -thirds of their earnings, ”says Savelyev.

The interlocutor of Novaya Gazeta Europe in independent trade unions of automotive traders says that working organizations in the industry are seriously undermined by the pressure of the state, like all Russian civil society:

“There may be some spontaneous outbreaks of anger in different forms, but the trade union organizers, knowledge and skills to defend their labor rights are now much less,” he notes.