TOLYATTI, October 17 (RIA Novosti) - Some 700 employees of struggling carmaker AvtoVaz took part in a protest rally in Russia's Volga area city of Tolyatti on Saturday, police said.
The protestors' main demands were the resignation of company management and a salary increase. They also want a return to a full working week from November 1, rather than December 1, as was previously announced.
"The rally passed without incident, and there were no arrests," a police source told RIA Novosti.
The demonstration was organized by independent trade union Unity.
"We have very small salaries," a disgruntled employee said. "Both I and my wife work at AvtoVaz, but we have already been forced to remove our child from nursery school for three months, and we are planning on extending this period. On monthly wages of 7,000 roubles (almost $240), we simply can't afford to pay out 2,000 for nursery costs."
Another protestor said that the company was rumored to be lining up redundancies.
"What else am I going to do?" he commented. "Work as a street sweeper? For one rubbish dump we already have five street sweepers."
A representative of the company's official trade union denied however that mass dismissals were being planned.
Russian Prime Minster Vladimir Putin pledged on October 5 that the government would never allow AvtoVaz to go under.
However, Putin's spokesman confirmed on Thursday media reports that the Industry Ministry had reversed its position on a state rescue, advising the government that a state bailout would be useless. Dmitry Peskov also added though that the letter the report was based on had been written two weeks ago.
"The reports of the mentioned publications are true only to the extent that the Industry and Trade Ministry letter with the summary of its position existed. However, it missed an important fact - this letter was written long ago," he said.
According to the Kommersant newspaper, the report concluded that the car giant was effectively bankrupt and it would be useless to pump money into it. The ministry added that the situation could be remedied only by dismissing as many as 50,000 of the 100,000-strong workforce and proposed spending money on stabilizing the situation on the labor market in the Samara Region, where AvtoVAZ is located.
AvtoVAZ has production capacity of over 800,000 vehicles annually. It has made more than 25 million Lada cars since it was established in 1970 as a joint project with Italian carmaker Fiat. The company currently produces 15 models priced between 150,000 rubles ($4,800) and 350,000 rubles ($11,240).
