502 metallurgists sent a protest letter to Kazakhmys

Employees of Zhezkazgan copper plant wrote a protest letter to the chairman of Kazakhmys corporation Eduard Ogai, Radio Azattyq writes. The document was signed by 502 metallurgists. Here is the text of the letter: “The social-economic situation in the region, that is Kazakhmys’ patrimony, is worsening every day. Rates for electricity, heat and water have gone up. This causes a rise in prices, including for the essential commodities. This makes our actual wages go down catastrophically. "We are not the troublemakers and want to avoid extreme measures. We are tired of oppression and humiliations from our management. The payment system in the company is discriminative. For example, the wages of the masters and heads of workshops have been raised recently. And nobody said a word about workers. “Resign, if you don’t want to work”: that’s all we hear from the management. We insistently ask you to review the issue of our wages, as metallurgists have always been the core of the corporation’s personnel.” According to former worker of the plant Yevgeniy Zavadskiy, the wages are not good enough for the workers, as they make around 60-70 thousand tenge ($405-470), many of them have mortgage loans to pay. The management’s wages were raised in the meantime.