KIROV, Central Russia -- Nikolai Morozov and his colleagues at Kirov's giant AviTe factory would gladly join Thursday's national strike to protest six-month wage arrears, except that their factory won't be working that day. Or the day before. Or the day after.
Like many of the heavy industrial plants in this depressed province 1,200 kilometers northeast of Moscow, the sprawling factory opens its gates to its 1,500-strong work force only two days per week, and then only for routine maintenance of the machinery and buildings.
"What's the point of going on strike when the management doesn't want us to come to work?" said Morozov, 48, a senior engineer at the factory, which produces aircraft and rocket parts. "There are no orders to fulfill, no materials to make anything with, and no money to pay the workers.
"Does it make a difference to anyone [in Moscow] if we have no work to do or whether we refuse to work? It comes to the same thing."
Locked in a spiral of debt to its employees and suppliers and unable to recover millions of dollars from the Defense Ministry, its main creditor, AviTe is just one of hundreds of concerns in the Kirov region paralyzed by the government's failure to pay its bills.
But though the region is among the hardest hit by the government's debt crisis, resentment over unpaid wages does not appear to have crystallized into the noisy, organized protest Russia's national labor leaders hope to see Thursday.
If Kirov turns out to be the rule rather than an exception, union bosses could be in for a big disappointment.
"Nothing will happen here on March 27. The main political movement is apathy -- and alcoholism," said Sergei Bachinin, editor of Kirov's only independent newspaper, the Vyatski Nabludatel, and runner-up in last Sunday's Kirov mayoral elections. "People hate the center. It is too remote for them to understand what happens there, or to think they can have any influence."
The local Communist Party is organizing a rally at the foot of the largest of the city's four statues of revolutionary Sergei Kirov, after whom the province was named in 1935, but a spokesman for the mayor's office said attendance is expected to be sparse.
"It'll be the same grannies waving the same red flags, shouting the same old slogans," said have little leverage in Moscow, said Mokeichev, because many have failed to adjust the output of their factories to meet the needs of the market.
Small- and medium-scale private businesses such as the Kalinka fur factory are being stifled by massive tax bills, said economic analyst Vera Yakubovich, and foreign investments -- such as a 1996 planned buyout of the Vesta washing machine factory -- have fallen through because of local red tape and disputes over management techniques and layoffs.
The last attempt at an organized strike by teachers began Nov. 26, but it fizzled out in disorganization and recrimination after a month, said local political analyst Yevgeny Pyatunin. One month's worth of wages was eventually paid to the teachers after the strike, Pyatunin said, but that still left them four months in arrears.
That experience leaves workers with little hope that a one-day strike this Thursday will achieve anything.
"We keep waiting for a social explosion every year, but it never comes," said Pyatunin. "The people here are very patient. Maybe it's because of our slow northern blood."
Even Alexander Lebed, who came to Kirov last Friday to drum up support for his candidate for State Duma deputy in Sunday's by-election, failed to stir the emotions of a stony-faced meeting of teachers.
"Kirovites, it is time to put a stop to those who are stealing what is rightfully yours," stormed Lebed, a popular former general who covets President Boris Yeltsin's job, to an impassive audience. "Put an end to the insult that is being perpetrated on you."
Lebed's candidate, Vladimir Molokov, lost to the broadly pro-government candidate, Nikolai Shalein. Shalein was preferred by the electorate because of a "naive" belief that a pro-Yeltsin man could extract more concessions from the central government, said Alexander Mikheyev, publisher of Lebed's 1995 polemical book, "I am Ashamed for My Country."
"People have lost faith in politics or protest," said analyst Yevgeny Pyatunin, who estimates that as many as 70 percent of Kirov's residents survive on "gray economy" activities such as small-time trading and running tiny, unregistered businesses. "They have realized that demonstrating won't put bread on the table. ... They'd rather devote their energy to digging potatoes on their allotments."
Like many of the heavy industrial plants in this depressed province 1,200 kilometers northeast of Moscow, the sprawling factory opens its gates to its 1,500-strong work force only two days per week, and then only for routine maintenance of the machinery and buildings.
"What's the point of going on strike when the management doesn't want us to come to work?" said Morozov, 48, a senior engineer at the factory, which produces aircraft and rocket parts. "There are no orders to fulfill, no materials to make anything with, and no money to pay the workers.
"Does it make a difference to anyone [in Moscow] if we have no work to do or whether we refuse to work? It comes to the same thing."
Locked in a spiral of debt to its employees and suppliers and unable to recover millions of dollars from the Defense Ministry, its main creditor, AviTe is just one of hundreds of concerns in the Kirov region paralyzed by the government's failure to pay its bills.
But though the region is among the hardest hit by the government's debt crisis, resentment over unpaid wages does not appear to have crystallized into the noisy, organized protest Russia's national labor leaders hope to see Thursday.
If Kirov turns out to be the rule rather than an exception, union bosses could be in for a big disappointment.
"Nothing will happen here on March 27. The main political movement is apathy -- and alcoholism," said Sergei Bachinin, editor of Kirov's only independent newspaper, the Vyatski Nabludatel, and runner-up in last Sunday's Kirov mayoral elections. "People hate the center. It is too remote for them to understand what happens there, or to think they can have any influence."
The local Communist Party is organizing a rally at the foot of the largest of the city's four statues of revolutionary Sergei Kirov, after whom the province was named in 1935, but a spokesman for the mayor's office said attendance is expected to be sparse.
"It'll be the same grannies waving the same red flags, shouting the same old slogans," said have little leverage in Moscow, said Mokeichev, because many have failed to adjust the output of their factories to meet the needs of the market.
Small- and medium-scale private businesses such as the Kalinka fur factory are being stifled by massive tax bills, said economic analyst Vera Yakubovich, and foreign investments -- such as a 1996 planned buyout of the Vesta washing machine factory -- have fallen through because of local red tape and disputes over management techniques and layoffs.
The last attempt at an organized strike by teachers began Nov. 26, but it fizzled out in disorganization and recrimination after a month, said local political analyst Yevgeny Pyatunin. One month's worth of wages was eventually paid to the teachers after the strike, Pyatunin said, but that still left them four months in arrears.
That experience leaves workers with little hope that a one-day strike this Thursday will achieve anything.
"We keep waiting for a social explosion every year, but it never comes," said Pyatunin. "The people here are very patient. Maybe it's because of our slow northern blood."
Even Alexander Lebed, who came to Kirov last Friday to drum up support for his candidate for State Duma deputy in Sunday's by-election, failed to stir the emotions of a stony-faced meeting of teachers.
"Kirovites, it is time to put a stop to those who are stealing what is rightfully yours," stormed Lebed, a popular former general who covets President Boris Yeltsin's job, to an impassive audience. "Put an end to the insult that is being perpetrated on you."
Lebed's candidate, Vladimir Molokov, lost to the broadly pro-government candidate, Nikolai Shalein. Shalein was preferred by the electorate because of a "naive" belief that a pro-Yeltsin man could extract more concessions from the central government, said Alexander Mikheyev, publisher of Lebed's 1995 polemical book, "I am Ashamed for My Country."
"People have lost faith in politics or protest," said analyst Yevgeny Pyatunin, who estimates that as many as 70 percent of Kirov's residents survive on "gray economy" activities such as small-time trading and running tiny, unregistered businesses. "They have realized that demonstrating won't put bread on the table. ... They'd rather devote their energy to digging potatoes on their allotments."
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