'They banned us from quitting then withheld our wages'

After the Chinese workers from Dobrush were not paid for three months, they set out on foot to Homiel. Eventually, they did receive their money, although not all of it.

On June 1, 95,000 people in Belarus did not receive their salary. Take for instance the Valozhyn flax plant. Accountant Anastasia says that the company still has not paid its workers the May salary. But that does not bother anyone - the same happened at the plant a year ago, all employees work for five days, no one protests.

"The situation was explained to the workers. The administration is working with people, so that there are no problems," said accountant Anastasia. The average salary at the Valozhyn flax plant is 4.7 million rubles, neither the highest nor the lowest in the city.

The company Mahilioudreu also has wage arrears. A few years ago, the company was visited by Alyaksandr Lukashenka. He issued an instructed not to fire people without the knowledge of the management and then approved Decree #9 "On additional measures for the development of the wood processing industry."

"Mind you, they do not have the right to leave without your knowledge, and those who will leave, will work in forced labor," said Mr Lukashenka to the leadership of the Mahilioudreu. At the same time he commanded that the salary at the company reach 500 USD.

"We have no wage arrears. We started paying salaries last week. There was only 2 weeks of delay," said the chief accountant of the enterprise Halina Dumnich. At first, the people were paid one and a half of the living wage - 2.3 million. Then they received the remainder. On average, the company workers receive 4.6 million, and it is far from the infamous 500 USD.

The Babruisk-based Fandok has not paid salaries for months - the recently paid one was for March.

"At the moment we have 27 large families, 54 families, where both parents work, 87 single mothers. We timely provide material aid to these categories," said as if from a piece of paper the chairperson of the state trade union commitee Alena Yushkevich. She explained that those who are particularly displeased get money via the company store - some people get a bed or a stool, and the money goes to salaries.

One of the workshops of the company is idle, but the people, according to the chairperson of the trade union, have been assigned to other jobs in the factory, no one complains. They are not Chinese!

The "universal Zen" was also mentioned by Natalia the company accountant. She did not complain either, even though the accountant had not received her salary for several months.

"If I start complaining, who will be left here?" asked the accountant. The average salary here is 2.8 - 3.1 million rubles.

For comparison - on 1 January 2015, 3,000 workers were owed their wages. On July 1 the figure was 95,000 people, and the amount was more than 410 billion rubles.