vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #164 / Business / Reading article...

A three-week-old wildcat strike by workers at the Sakha-Avia airline company has caused serious disruption at the Yakutia airport and has all but eliminated direct air travel between Primorye and the Sakha Republic.

Sakha Avia’s general director in Yakutsk Lev Azarov confirmed that while other airlines, such as Domodedovo Air, are flying to the city, SakhaAvia’s planes have been all but grounded. The once-weekly flight from Vladivostok to Yakutsk has not flown in three weeks, Vladivostok airport officials confirmed.

And the strike has affected not only Primorye. With the exception of flights from Moscow, direct flights from other regions of the country have been virtually stopped. Sean McKee, director of the Russian-American Business Educational Center in Yakutsk, said he had recently been forced to fly from Magadan to Yakutsk via Moscow.

According to Azarov, airplane maintenance workers and technicians are refusing to work, due to wages that are in some cases a year in arrears. This, in turn, led many of SakhaAvia’s pilots to refuse to work out of concern for the airplanes’ technical airworthiness.

Andrei Ilarionov, director of the Yakutsk airport, denied that there was a strike, calling the stoppage at SakhaAiva “technical maintenance” and an “internal problem with SakhaAvia.”

Technically, the work stoppage is a wildcat strike, because the local aviation trade union is not sponsoring it. However, this doesn’t lessen the urgency of the demands of the striking workers, according to Sergei Grishukov, supervisor of the Aviation Technical Base (ATB) at the Yakutsk airport.

“If you hadn’t received your salary in a year or so, how could you live with that,” said Grishukov. “People’s patience has run out, and what remains are their demands on the company.

“Each individual has the right to refuse to fulfill his obligations if the salaries are not paid to that individual,” he continued. “This is in accordance with the law here and internationally. It is a violation of the rights of the individual.”

In addition to the logistical inconveniences posed by the work stoppage, local residents have also noticed a loss of revenues from incoming tourist and business traffic. “The strike certainly is affecting business and traffic at the airport. Money is being lost here and you need to earn money in order to pay the salaries,” said Grishukov, “If you’re not making any money, there’s nothing to pay out. This is a question of politics here. It affects the whole republic.”

Asked about renewal of regular flights to Yakutsk, Azarov said that the company hopes to have regular flights again next week. “I won’t guarantee it, but it’s possible there might be some sort of agreement,” he said.