Freedom and democracy come to Siberia...

AN APPEAL FROM SIBERIA (YES, SIBERIA)

I didn't think we'd ever run a headline like that -- something which would have been perfectly ordinary during Tsarist or Stalinist times, but now? Just to make things clear -- we're not referring to labour camps, but to oil workers in the Khanty-Mansy autonomous region.

Imagine yourself working for a pittance in Siberia, your real income stuck at 1995 levels, while oil production shoots up, the price of oil goes through the roof, and your company pays out a billion US dollars in dividends. Of course you'd organize a union, which is perfectly alright now in Russia, and you'd approach the company to negotiate terms and conditions of employment. But what happens when your company refuses to let the workers meet, refuses to negotiate, sacks union activists, and even expels the local union leader and his family from their apartment? What do you do?

The workers at Slavneft managed to get their appeal out to the world through the trade union newspaper "Solidarnost" and the trud.org website -- and through them, to LabourStart. In what is being described as the first major global solidarity campaign initiated by Russian workers, these oil workers in Siberia are appealing for your help. Please send off your message to the company today:

Source: http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=62