style="text-align: left;">Police Investigate Calls To GM Union Leader

Police Investigate Calls To GM Union Leader

By Irina Titova

Special to The St. Petersburg Times

St. Petersburg police are investigating a series of anonymous threatening phone calls made to the head of the trade union for the city’s General Motors plant Yevgeny Ivanov, the city police press service said on Thursday.

"The police are checking the situation and questioning employees of the plant on the matter," said Vyacheslav Stepchenko, spokesman for the city police.

Ivanov said he had received at least four anonymous calls in the last few weeks with threats and demands to stop union work at the plant. Ivanov fears not only for his own safety but also for the safety of his family. Ivanov has two children.

Ivanov received the first call in early December. Later his wife received another call in which the caller said that "if her husband did not stop his activities, they knew which kindergarten one of their children attends," Ivanov said.

Two other threats followed before Ivanov went to the police.

Sergei Lepnukhov, spokesman for GM, said he didn’t know about any threats received by Ivanov.

"We need to find out more about that situation, and only then to comment. First we need to figure out if those threats have any relation to the company," Lepnukhov said.

Valery Pirozhkov, curator of the city’s Trade Union Center of the Russian Labor Confederation, said "such threats should be taken seriously."

"We have the example of Alexei Etmanov, head of the Ford car-making plant’s trade union, who also previously received threats and later had problems," Pirozhkov said.

Etmanov was attacked twice in November and considers the incident to be connected to his public and trade union activities.

Meanwhile, Ivanov said GM workers are worried about the plant’s plans to slash the working week to three days after restarting the assembly line on Feb. 9 after the New Year break.

"I know of cases when high quality workers have decided to leave the plant because they won’t be able to feed their families on the new salary. They are looking for better paid jobs," Ivanov said.

St. Petersburg’s GM plant is shortening the working week after its U.S. owners said Tuesday it is cutting production in Russia as demand declines in a market only recently described as the largest in Europe.

The cuts affect GM’s new plant outside St. Petersburg and its venture with Russian manufacturer AvtoVAZ in Togliatti. GM’s Chevrolet is the best-selling foreign car brand in Russia.

Lepnukhov said the three-day week will be in place for the next few months, AP reported.

GM opened its new $300 million plant outside St. Petersburg in November with plans to produce 70,000 Chevrolet and Opel cars a year.

But with the Russian market already contracting, the plant closed down for an extended break from Dec. 20 to Jan. 19.

Production resumed for only one week before being shut down again.

In Togliatti, the GM AvtoVAZ venture is cutting back to one shift and laying off some 400 workers, about one-third of the workforce, company spokeswoman Lyudmila Murycheva said, AP reported.

The production cuts in Russia come as GM cut 2,000 jobs at two U.S. plants and halted production for several weeks at nine other U.S. factories. The U.S. car industry is facing its worst sales slump in 26 years.

Foreign car sales in Russia rose 26 percent in 2008, continuing a trend of several years, but were down 15 percent in November and 10 percent in December.

(Comment by Michael Baehr:) It looks like Chevies arn't selling in Russia either.

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