Strike Virtually Closes City Port
By Vladimir Kovalyev
Staff Writer
Local harbor pilots brought sea traffic into St. Petersburg's port to a standstill on Wednesday by initiating a work action in protest of a federal government decision to ban private pilot services in three major northern seaports. "We are protesting against the government's intention to destroy the service of private pilots, which has existed successfully for the last 10 years," said Andrei Makeyev, a representative of the St. Petersburg Sea Pilot Association in an interview on Wednesday. "We demand contact with a presidential or government representative to resolve the situation," he said. On Wednesday, more than 100 ships, including 47 oil tankers were stuck on the approach to St. Petersburg, 13 kilometers west of Kronshtadt. Not a single harbor pilot worked that day, and pilots in Kaliningrad and Murmansk joined the action as well. Exceptions were made for five vessels on Wednesday, including two passenger boats that were guided into port from the Gulf of Finland after negotiations had been conducted between pilots and Inflot Management, the company responsible for foreign cruise ships. The passenger ships made port on schedule. The pilots are protesting a July 17 government decree that did not list St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad or Murmansk among the ports where the activity of commercial pilots is allowed. According to the decree, those ports are considered strategically important. "There is crucial, strategically significant sea traffic coming through those ports, and we cannot allow anything serious to happen there, such as people wanting to stop work for some reason, as they have now," said Alexander Filimonov, a spokesperson for the Transport Ministry in a telephone interview on Thursday. "Pilots [in those ports] do not pay anything to finance the renovation of harbor facilities and the security systems of ports. They just put all the money in their pockets. Private pilots have already shown that what they do they do to harm the state," Filimonov said. Port management has hired 19 state pilots since Wednesday, including one of the 107 commercial pilots who are on strike. Management said that a total of 70 pilots are required to return the port to normal operations. Andrei Markerov, a spokesperson for the port's management, said that the new state-employed pilots had carried out more than 100 operations on Thursday, leaving only about 20 cargo ships waiting to enter the port. Markerov said that the remaining backlog would be cleared by Friday morning. The striking commercial pilots are concerned that their incomes will be reduced if piloting activity is nationalized. According to Makeyev, pilots now earn an average of about $1,000 per month. He stated that commercial pilots in the southern port of Novorossiisk earned about that amount prior to seeing their activity transferred to state control last November. Now pilots who work there are paid state salaries of 5,000 rubles a month, Makeyev said. Dmitry Korchnev, head of the Maxima Maritime Agency in Novorossiisk, said that local pilots earned up to $5,000 a month before they were transferred to state contracts. Now they earn 6,000 rubles. Local pilots fear that a similar fate awaits them. "There are state wage scales that cannot be ignored. What can a pilot's salary be if, according to state regulations, a government official makes about 8,000 rubles and the president earns just 16,000 rubles a month? Could a pilot's salary be higher?," Ma keyev said. St. Petersburg sea port management says it could. The monthly salary of a state-employed harbor pilot would be about 27,000 rubles (about $920), Interfax reported Thursday. According to Makeyev, pilots at the Far Eastern ports of Nikolayevsk-na-Amurye and Nakhodka declared a "pre-strike condition" on Thursday in sympathy with the St. Petersburg action. Pilots from Vladivostok and Vyborg have also expressed solidarity although those ports are not among those the Transport Ministry considers strategically important. Alexei Gutsailo, spokesperson for Northwest Region Governor General Viktor Cherkesov, said Thursday that his office is in the process of studying the situation. "We are examining some documents, and after that is finished some measures will be taken. I would say something will be undertaken next week," Gutsailo said. City Hall could not be reached for comment Thursday. Negotiations Thursday between pilots and Cherkesov's inspector, Nikolai Vinichenko, resulted in an agreement that pilots would deliver passenger ships to the harbor. They agreed to this after the Transport Ministry pledged to open direct negotiations with pilots on Friday. The commercial firm Volgotanker has suffered the biggest financial losses from the strike, according to the daily newspaper Vedomosti. The paper quoted a company spokesperson saying that Volgotanker was losing $12 million per day. Serik Zhusupov, deputy head of the Sea Port Cargo Company, said that companies that work with his firm have lost an estimated 30 million ruble ($1 million) since the strike began. "This is very negative and can hardly be called partnership when one organization tries to solve its problems at the expense of the companies it works with. They say that 400 people work with them, but what about the 6,000 who work with the sea port?" Zhusupov said in an interview on Thursday.
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