[Summary translation prepared by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre]

Trade union of the world's largest titanium producer wrote a letter to Putin about wage cuts, 15 June 2023
The largest titanium producer in the world, VSMPO-Avisma, is reducing employee salaries and dismissing those who disagree, the company’s trade union said.

After the change of management from January this year, additional payments for length of service were cancelled and additional payments for night shifts were reduced from 40% to 20%. The salaries were not indexed to the 2022 inflation rate. As a result, workers began to quit en masse....

Zulfar Faizulin, chairman of the trade union, refused to agree on the new wage formation scheme with the management. After that, according to the union, the management "started a war with the trade union": it published a text about trade union representatives who are "dangerous" for production in URA.RU and asked the prosecutor's office to check the union.

As a result, the trade union wrote a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin....

In response, the VSMPO-Avisma press service issued a statement that the company had increased employee salaries for the second time in a year, and the increase in payroll was 16%. “There are no mass layoffs happening. Moreover, we are actively recruiting people and offering them good financial conditions,” noted a representative of the VSMPO-Avisma press service in a comment sent to The Moscow Times.