About 100 Tajik workers were dismissed from the chemical plant “Khimpek” in the city of Shakhty, Rostov region. On January 15, they announced a strike demanding a salary increase and paid leave. The migrants say they were promised a 15 percent salary increase, but instead of 75-80 thousand rubles, they received 64 thousand rubles, and […]
About 100 Tajik workers were dismissed from the chemical plant “Khimpek” in the city of Shakhty, Rostov region.
On January 15, they announced a strike demanding a salary increase and paid leave.
The migrants say they were promised a 15 percent salary increase, but instead of 75-80 thousand rubles, they received 64 thousand rubles, and some received 49 thousand rubles.
After this, about 100 Tajik migrants announced a strike on Monday. The plant management expressed irritation and demanded that the migrants take their documents and leave the plant.
One of the migrants said on January 16 in a conversation with Radio Ozodi that after the strike they were called in, paid their salary for half of January, and were immediately dismissed, and they were not even allowed to spend the night in the plant’s dormitory.
The plant management has not yet commented on the reason for the dismissal of about a hundred Tajik labor migrants. The Embassy of Tajikistan in Russia has also not responded to this report.
Organizations for the protection of migrant rights say that Russian employers constantly violate the rights of labor migrants, but usually, no one pays attention to this.
Tajik labor migrants claim that the rights of Tajik citizens are most often violated in Russia, but neither Russian nor Tajik authorities are in a hurry to help Tajiks.
Recently, there has been an increasing atmosphere of hostility towards migrants in Russia, with residents and authorities openly expressing their dissatisfaction with the presence of migrants, and dozens of anti-migrant groups and pages have emerged on social networks. Law enforcement agencies are constantly conducting mass raids and checks against the backdrop of anti-migrant sentiments in the country, detaining migrants by the dozens, and some are being deported.
Additionally, authorities in various Russian regions are raising the cost of patents for labor migrants, thereby trying to limit the activities of labor migrants in the country.
Russian deputies explain these restrictions as “concern for Russian citizens about the increasing number of migrants in the country, the difficulty of their integration into Russian society,” claiming that migrants have started earning more than Russian citizens, as well as the fact that Russians themselves lack jobs.
However, judging by recent reports, some Russian cities are already experiencing a shortage of labor, as migrants are leaving Russia due to numerous restrictions and pressure from law enforcement agencies. At the same time, Russians themselves do not want to clean the streets and work on construction sites.