One of the richest businessmen in Russia Mr. Oleg Deripaska was absent from St. Peteresburg Economic Conference. He was summoned by the Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to nearby Pikalyovo to be rebuked for not paying wages at his cement plant there since March. Putin visited a town ravaged by the global downturn and blamed Deripaska, as well as local officials for its dismal condition.
The closure of the factory and two others in the town of 23,000 left hundreds out of work, sparking protests that shut a highway and prompted Putin to stop off on his way back from Finland.
“I wanted to bring here the authors of this tragedy, whose greed and ambition have made thousands of people hostage to this situation,” Putin said on state television. “Where is the social responsibility of business?”
"The protests in Pikalyovo, which started on June 2, have been the most visible industrial action in Russia since the Siberian miners’ strike of 1998, when oil prices dropped below $10 a barrel and Boris Yeltsin’s government was forced to default on $40 billion of domestic debt and devalue the ruble, wiping out the life savings of millions of people overnight," reports Bloomberg.
Posted June 5th, 2009 by Armen Hareyan
