On the third day of the strike the workers of the turning shop of the Unitary Enterprise (UE) "Lyos" (located in the town of Baran) resumed their work. A representative of the administration promised that in July their demand to increase the rates may be (!) satisfied.

The workers of Turning Shop No. 3 of the UE "Lyos" came to work on June 15 and 16, but refused to do it. The turners protested against the employer's failure to follow the earlier reached agreement to increase job rates. The Director warned the workers that if they failed to start working, he would transfer the order to other contractor. On June 17, the workers held consultations and decided to stop their strike for the time being.

As reported to the website www.praca-by.info by Vasily Levchenkov, Chairman of the Free Trade Union of Metalworkers (SPM), today, on June 18, the production manager asked the turners to come to work also on their day off. According to Mr Levchenkov, in reply to the announced demands about job rates, a spokesman of the administration said that next month, maybe, the demands will be satisfied.

"The workers decided to resume work, but they don't give up their demands," Vasily has emphasized. "I don't know whether the workers will agree to employer's suasion to come to work on Saturday – in fact, they were deceived. One turner told it straight: we work almost for free, and they still ask us to come on day off…"

The union chairman said that the monthly salary of turners at the UE "Lyos" makes 600-800 thousand roubles on the average.

According to the trade-union leader, the SPM is going to continue negotiating with the employer on increasing job rates.

"We understand that the situation is heavy; the equipment at the factory is worn out. Such equipment doesn't allow making competitive, high-quality and cheap products," Vasily Levchenkov has noted. "When working on out-of-date machine tools, you can't boost labour productivity. Plus overhead expenses – we need to maintain non-productive personnel. I don't know the today's situation, but two years the product price was surcharged with 700 percent of overheads. Can you imagine? All this leads to non-demanded products. But it's not the workers' guilt. Why should they pay for government's mistakes? An elderly worker complained to me: 'You know, Vasily, I go with my granddaughter, and she asks to buy a chocolate, but I cannot afford it…' This is the situation that we have…"

Let us remind you that in March 2010 the administration of the UE "Lyos" fulfilled the demand of the workers and extended the labour contract with SPM activist turner Vyacheslav Reut. The victory inspired the workers. They demanded from the employer to increase their salaries, start fair distribution of bonuses and transfer the workers under the piece-rate system into termless labour contracts. The employer then agreed to increase job rates by 20-30 percent if enterprise receives a lot of orders. In May, the employer fulfilled the promise, but in June stepped back referring to the heavy economic situation in the country and at the enterprise.