3,000 Russian nuclear workers go on one-day strike
12.48 p.m. ET (1749 GMT) November 19, 1998
MOSCOW (AP) — About 3,000 nuclear workers in a closed Ural Mountains city held a one-day strike Thursday to demand unpaid wages and pay raises to help them cope with inflation, a news report said.
About 100 of the striking workers picketed outside the headquarters of the administrative center of the Ural Mountains city of Snezhinsk, about 950 miles east of Moscow, and collected signatures for an appeal to Russian Nuclear Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov.
Union chairman Yuri Bersenev said the walkout posed no danger.
"We provided for necessary measures to ensure the reliable safety of our facilities. The most dangerous of them were either stopped beforehand or continue operating in the normal regime,'' the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Bersenev as saying.
The workers are demanding at least three months of back pay, and 200 percent wage increases to help deal with rising inflation, ITAR-Tass said.
"Constant undernourishment, insufficient medical service, inability to buy clothing and footwear for children or to pay for their education ... have created grave permanent psychological stress, which is the cause of our protests,'' the workers' appeal said.
Many nuclear towns across Russia, built during the Soviet era, are still closed off for security reasons.
The Russian government owes the nuclear industry nearly $170 million for unpaid state orders. Nuclear workers in several cities held a three-day strike in September. |
