Archive · 2016 · From the print edition of Thursday 21 January 2016, Vol. 23, No. 7,156
Across IradNurzhan heating workers end three-day strike
District-heating workers went back to work yesterday after the city agreed to pay three months of wage arrears by February. Radiators in the city's flats were lukewarm all week.
NURZHAN — Workers of Nurzhanteploset, the city's district-heating enterprise, ended a three-day strike yesterday after the city administration agreed to pay three months of wage arrears by the middle of February. The heat plants were kept at minimum temperature during the stoppage, and residents of the city's apartment blocks spent three days in coats indoors with outside temperatures near minus 20.
It was the first strike in a public service since the Labor Code of 2009, which requires 30 days' notice and conciliation by the ministry concerned. The union said notice had been given in December and that conciliation had produced "nothing but minutes".
The workers' cause was backed by several members of the city council, among them Oleg Zubarev, the enterprise's chief engineer until last year, who said the arrears were "the price of every winter we have not repaired the mains". The administration said the money would come from the city's reserve fund.
Not all residents were sympathetic. "Of course they should be paid," said a pensioner in the Navbahor district. "But I am also not paid enough, and I did not turn off their heating."