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By Nonna Chernyakova
Twenty-two workers at Vladivostok Power Station No. 2 halted a nine-day hunger strike recently when the company began paying salaries for the past six months. The strikers, all of whom worked in the chemical department, also demanded that bankruptcy proceedings be halted against Dalenergo, which owns the plant, said Sergei Korotkov, the power station's trade union leader. The protest, which ended Dec. 1, took its toll on the workers, eighteen of whom were women. Five strikers were hospitalized, one woman began showing symptoms of hepatitis, and another had a stomach hemorrhage. "The trade union supported them," Korotkov said. "We bought them mineral water, and we organized some financial help for them. These women were desperate; they had nothing to feed their children with." The plant's remaining 1,878 workers, who also hadn't been paid for six months, will receive 1 ? months' wages. The payment comes from a federal grant of 20 million rubles ($1.1 million) to Dalenergo, money which conveniently just arrived in Primorye, the company says. Despite the pay, other workers had divided opinions on the strikers. "Some people said, 'They [the directors] should pay them; these guys shouldn't ruin their health,'" Korotkov said. Other felt that since the strikers kept working and went home at night, their fast couldn't have been real. Pyotr Cherednichenko, a senior guard at the power station, said, "I doubt if they are on hunger strike at all, if they are able to work." The strikers' health deteriorated, and some of them fainted at their workstations. There was a chance that the chemical department would close, and this would bring the power station to a halt. It was the second hunger strike this fall. In mid-September, about 20 repair workers also demanded back wages. After Anatoly Chubais, director of the Unified Energy Systems of Russia, intervened, the strikers received two months' salaries and they returned to work. Many workers were angry that Chief Engineer Vitaly Litvishko went on a cruise to Japan at the time of a hunger strike and serious financial problems in the company. They wondered about the ethics of the trip or at least the appearance of callousness, and asked where he got the money to travel abroad. Korotkov said he checked the payrolls and found out that the power station's top officials were not paid for six months either. But he scurried to defend his boss: "It is his personal business where he goes and when."
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