Regional authorities talk to coal company over layoffs
[Presenter Oksana Ganzha] Krasnoyarsk Territory Legislative Assembly members have been commenting on forthcoming
layoffs at collieries. Siberian Coal-and-Energy Company [SUEK] representatives call this optimization of the production
processes. Today [21 January] both sides were present at a meeting of the standing commission on property under the
Territory legislature. The members of the commission decided after the meeting that they should visit the opencast
coalmines to check the words of the SUEK owners.
[Correspondent Sergey Mitrukhin] A new SUEK manager attended the meeting of the property commission. The lawmakers
are asking him to describe how SUEK is looking after the Territory residents who work at the opencast coalmines. The
deputies keep receiving reports about job cuts at the mines. SUEK does not deny that and says that about 1,300 employees
- mostly at the Berezovskiy opencast coalmine - were sacked last year. This year no job cuts are planned. [Passage
omitted: repetition]. The employees from support services are being moved to newly created service firms.
[Aleksandr Kuznetsov, captioned as regional manager, SUEK] We have created six subsidiary companies affiliated to
SUEK, one of them being a limited company known as Nazarovskiy repair-and-mechanical plant. Some employees have been
offered jobs at a new security enterprise and others will still work at the coalmines. Overall, no layoffs are envisaged
in 2004.
[Correspondent] The deputies are noting an unprecedented improvement in relations between the businessmen and the
legislators. It looks like the coal wars are over and the SUEK representatives are discussing their problems calmly.
They say that, in order to get the sacked workers at the Berezovskiy opencast coalmine new jobs, the company spent R20m
- more than R20,000 per employee. The legislative assembly members have said they will check these statements
locally.
[Aleksandr Shvedov, captioned as member of Territory Legislative Assembly] I have personally heard from the heads of
district administrations and members of local councils in various areas - in Borodino, Sharypovo, Nazarovo and others -
that the situation is quite the opposite. That there are layoffs and that no additional revenues have been paid into the
local budgets by SUEK.
[Correspondent] The legislative assembly members at the meeting asked SUEK to present a detailed plan for investment
in the sector and to report on how the programme for social protection of the sacked workers was implemented.
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