20,000 protest consumer price hikes (07/02/06)

20,000 protest consumer price hikes

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Olena Lytvynova, 45, doesn't know how she's going to make it.

Her daughter's college bill exceeds her $107 a month salary, and two more children are hoping to enter college soon.

Already in debt with her utility bill, she can't fathom an increase.

"I can't give my children a higher education, and then there's heating, electricity, food and clothing to pay," said Ms. Lytvynova, a doctor in Oleksandria of the Kirovohrad Oblast. "It's impossible to go on living like this."

Ms. Lytvynova was among more than 20,000 Ukrainians who rallied at Kyiv's Independence Square on June 27 to protest government measures that they say would make living unaffordable.

In recent weeks, the Ukrainian government has announced steep consumer price hikes for natural gas, utilities, sewage and telephone communication, drawing outrage from citizens who say they can barely afford to live now, let alone after such increases.

Arriving from all oblasts of Ukraine and representing each shade of the political spectrum, the protesters banded together under an umbrella organization, the Federation of Ukraine's Trade Unions (FUTU), and demanded a moratorium on price hikes, exacting higher wages instead.

"We turn to the president of Ukraine, as the Constitution's guarantor, to cease the anti-people, anti-social and anti-constitutional acts by the government and, as the Constitution's guarantor, to defend the people of Ukraine," said Oleksander Yurkin, president of FUTU.

The organization represents more than 10 million Ukrainian workers, 44 trade unions and 26 territorial coalitions of trade union organizations, whose members range from miners and laborers to teachers and doctors.

FUTU organized the All-Ukrainian Trade Union Protest on the eve of the 10th anniversary of Constitution Day, which is celebrated on June 28.

Leaders used the occasion to point out the government is violating the Constitution of Ukraine by failing to provide its citizens with the minimal standard of living, as guaranteed by the Constitution.

This includes adequate wages, as well as affordable prices for food, clothing and housing. Ms. Lytvynova said she and her husband can't afford proper nutrition for their children.

"They don't have the basic food needed for a balanced diet to be a healthy person," Ms. Lytvynova said. "All they eat is potatoes and bread. All it does is gain them cellulite. I know this food won't be healthy for them, but I can't offer anything else."

The Ukrainian Constitution also explicitly states that the nation's citizens will have adequate social security, which is supposed to provide financial support in times of unemployment or illness. Pensions, according to the Constitution, are supposed to meet the minimal standard of living.

Ukrainians pay for their utilities as part of a single monthly utility bill known as "communal services," which includes maintenance, heating, water, natural gas and electricity.

Most of those taking part in the protests said they spend at least half of their monthly wage paying for utilities alone.

Starting July 1, the average water bill will increase 14 percent, sewage costs will rise 49 percent, heating will increase 114 percent and maintenance costs will rise 41 percent, according to Hryhorii Semchuk, the vice minister of construction, architecture and residential-communal management.

In June the Ukrainian government had already increased the cost of train travel, with some fares between certain destinations doubling.

The cost of natural gas, which Ukrainians use to fuel their ovens, will soar by 85 percent as of July 1.

It's not clear if the Ukrainian government's decision to increase gas prices is related to its controversial supplier, RosUkrEnergo, a company reportedly held by the Russian monopoly Gazprom and two Ukrainian businessmen, Dmytro Firtash and Ivan Fursin.

The price increases will affect industries more acutely than average Ukrainians, and some have warned that they may go bankrupt.

Yulia Tymoshenko has argued that many Ukrainian industries can afford to pay higher prices for natural gas, which they currently purchase at low rates.

Though many of the protesters voted for one of the mainstream political blocs or parties, it was the Communists and radical Progressive Socialists who delivered speeches at the rally.

Through its policies, the Ukrainian government is committing genocide against its people, said Volodymyr Marchenko, a leader of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, which supports economic, political and military union with the Russian Federation.

Mr. Marchenko said he has participated alongside trade union representatives in negotiating with the government to raise the minimum wage and has observed government officials to be unresponsive and indifferent to people's needs.

In calculating the minimum wage, government economists neglect to take into account the cost of medicine, education and purchasing a residence, he claimed.

Ukraine is among the world's cheapest exporters of electricity, which makes it criminal to increase prices for its own people and industries. "They sell it abroad and raise prices for their own people," Mr. Marchenko said. "There isn't any economic foundation. There isn't any economic necessity to increase natural gas or electricity prices for people. This decision is only to provide unbelievable wealth for their entourage."

Some of Mr. Marchenko's claims are backed by Ivan Poltavets, an energy analyst at the Institute for Economic Research and Political Consultation.

Ukrainian economists aren't sure themselves what the appropriate price of natural gas should be because the government isn't transparent with its figures, Mr. Poltavets told the Lviv-based Expres newspaper in an interview published on June 22.

The National Commission to Regulate Electric Energy has such convoluted formulas to determine prices that economists can't make sense of them, he said.

"In my view, they're subjective and don't reflect the true price of gas," he said of Ukraine's energy prices. "It is a monopolized and politicized market, in which prices indicate one or another type of agreement."

Although pro-Russian forces took to the stage, many of the protesters said they had supported the Orange Revolution - though they were admittedly disappointed with its results.

Though once a believer, Ms. Lytvynova said she wouldn't support the revolution again, knowing what has come of it.

Oleksander Diadchenko, 46, a Poltava construction worker, said he and his wife are supporting three children on $268 a month.

"The Orange Revolution is quietly going into the shadows, and they don't want to continue it in the spirit in which it was started," Mr. Diadchenko said. "I'm not entirely disappointed, but I don't understand what they're trying to do. They fought on behalf of the people but are returning to the way things were."

FUTU's Kyiv rally came a week after a wave of protests swept cities throughout Ukraine, in which more than 200,000 union members took part.

At its Kyiv protest, FUTU submitted a letter to the Presidential Secretariat, Cabinet of Ministers and Verkhovna Rada expressing dissatisfaction with the government.

Its first demand was for the government to stop violating the constitutional rights of Ukrainian citizens and start providing them with wages and prices that meet minimum standards for living.

FUTU also demanded an immediate moratorium on utility price hikes, and higher wages, pensions and social benefits.

Prices are increasing without the required means of anticipated security for people, the letter stated. "The vast majority of Ukrainian families and a quarter of Ukrainian workers don't even meet the minimal standard of living," the letter noted "Such decisions lead to the denial of the constitutional right for an adequate standard of living for tens of millions of Ukrainian citizens."

As for Ms. Lytvynova, she has her own personal message to Ukraine's leaders:

"Turn back to the people you've left behind, try to count our expenses and explain to us how we're supposed to live."

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