While the Ukrainian government pompously holds forth on effective interaction between state and business, Kyiv businesspeople have once again been plunged into an eddy of discontent. This time the capital is under siege by semis on which Ukrainian entrepreneurs have inscribed a message to bureaucrats: “No more experiments involving Ukrainian truck drivers!”
The complaints of Ukraine’s long-distance truck drivers, which have accumulated during the past few months finally came to a head last Wednesday, when between 500 and 600 members of the Association of International Truck Drivers (AITD) went on strike. Indignant at the state’s unacceptable attitude to their sector, entrepreneurs picketed the Cabinet of Ministers and Kyiv City Hall. And while the protesters managed to take the cabinet by storm without the traditional, protracted series of actions — officials had promised to meet all the teamsters’ demands — they ended up having to lay a prolonged “siege” to City Hall.
“Ukraine is a transit state, not a principality owned by Chernovetsky,” “No more experiments involving Ukrainian truck drivers,” “Banning truck traffic means sabotaging Ukraine’s economy,” “First parking lots, then a traffic ban” — these were some of the slogans wielded during the protest against the Kyiv City Administration’s notorious ban on heavy trucks from the city of Kyiv.
Representatives of the truckers’ association claim this is an open-ended protest action. In other words, the teamsters will not leave until officials keep their promise to satisfy the strikers’ one and only demand. Otherwise, they will drive their semis right onto Khreshchatyk Boulevard.
“If necessary, we will be spending nights here. We will bring our trucks and sleep in them,” said Valerii Chernenko from the AITD strike committee. “Most of our people are on the road today, but we plan on bringing about 5,000 truckers here if the protest continues. People are also coming in from other regions to take part in the protest.”
The protesters are not sure if Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky will meet their demands or at least come out to see them, although the AITD put this request in writing. But, as the association’s president Leonid Kostiuchenko noted, the teamsters do not intend to give up and if they fail to solve all the problems on the first day, during the evening the strike committee will decide on further actions.
Meanwhile, the teamsters hope to have a one-on-one meeting either with the mayor or some of his deputies. Kyiv is gradually being besieged by heavy trucks. According to the protesters, trucks were stopped on the approaches to Kyiv, which resulted in gridlock on the Odesa, Kharkiv, and Zhytomyr highways, and the road to Irpen. As Chernenko pointed out, the trucks are parked in two lanes and are not obstructing traffic; one lane has been left open for other vehicles.
So far, so good. Kostiuchenko says that when the protest began, about a thousand trucks came into Kyiv, but more are expected to join them soon.
This seems to be an effective step. If bureaucrats are not reading letters or answering phone calls, you can only reach their offices by shouting from the streets. After all, the state has often told national businesses, “Speak up and you will be heard!”
This is the very slogan that our top statesmen use when it comes to business problems. But good intentions are still no guarantee of constructive dialogue, as can be seen in the case of the striking truckers.
Recently an attempt was made to improve relations between entrepreneurs and bureaucrats at the annual forum Business and Government as Partners, held at Ukraine House. The forum participants leveled criticism at the imperfect system of governmental control, supervision, and technical regulation, and highlighted the tense relations between businesses and the local authorities. President Yushchenko even promised to issue a decree to cancel all government decisions that are not in line with the current law.
The Office of the Prosecutor- General has also been instructed to inspect regional decision-making centers and determine whether the law on state control is being applied throughout Ukraine’s regions. The entrepreneurs also raised such acute questions as the non-transparent assessment methods being applied by the National Commission for Electric Power Regulation, the excessive number of tax raids, and many other issues.
The Daywas curious to learn what the entrepreneurs failed to tell the forum’s distinguished guests. What is worrying businesses if they are prepared to picket every day? Is this a traffic jam or an economic bottleneck?
COMMENTARY
Zhanna IVANOVA , general manager, Unitrans Company:
“Things were sluggish at the forum, there was no movement or passion. The only thing that company owners got was a lot of talk about a rosy future, but no concrete answers or promises. So if nothing is decided by the evening, we will take our trucks to City Hall — we’ve got enough vehicles for this. We are planning to champion our demands.
“We were invited to come to the Kyiv City Administration for 9 a.m. After we arrived, we saw only a few people there. But we phoned our colleagues and were told that a column was coming here from the Cabinet of Ministers building because we were supposed to meet up there and hold a rally, and repeat our previous demands to the cabinet and other executive bodies during a warning strike on May 6. First, we picketed the Cabinet of Ministers and at 10 a.m., the Kyiv City Council, where the column of picketers had moved. We were promised that all our demands would be met and that the Cabinet of Ministers was planning to consider our demands at a session. I don’t think this will happen.
“The strike was not organized very well. The picketers were disgruntled because they hardly knew what was going on. I doubt our demands will be met because so few people are interested in this. In order for our demands to be satisfied, we should stand our ground to the very end. There are a lot of commercial entities that are not interested in these demands being met because they benefit from this.
“There were provocations during the strike. When we arrived, we saw some picketers with red flags, although we were all holding white and blue ones. “We don’t know why they were demonstrating there. Since there is so much bad blood between business and officials, it may become necessary to stand in line in order to go on strike.”
