Russian air traffic controllers have threatened further action over a union leader's sacking after picketing the building of Russia's air transport agency Rosaviatsia on Friday.
Around 100 controllers picketed the Rosaviatsia building in Moscow after the Russian Federal Air Controllers Trade Union's vice president, Yury Batagov, was given his final notice for the third time in just over a year.
Oleg Babich, secretary of the trade union umbrella group Zashchita Truda, said the dismissals - one for alleged absence without leave, the other two for certificate expiry - were trumped up. Batagov has been leading efforts to push for a review of working conditions.
"The employer fabricated the evidence against Batagov," Babich said. "We then proved in court that its actions were illegal."
He said there would be a bigger rally later this month, followed by a march, but given the Moscow authorities' hard-line stance on street protests, the march is unlikely to get the go-ahead.
Andrei Pryanishnikov, spokesman for Russia's State Air Traffic Management Corporation, dismissed today's picket, spearheaded by union president Sergei Kovalev, as "provocation" and a "show."
The controllers' demands for "social partnership between employers and employees" are groundless, he said.
"There have been no economical grounds for the sparking of protest sentiments among the staff," Pryanishnikov said.
He maintained that the majority of controllers "from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok" have been going to work as usual and paid no attention to calls for a strike.
MOSCOW, April 1 (RIA Novosti)
