Vostochny space base project managing co to give jobs to workers of its former contractor

VLADIVOSTOK, April 23. /TASS/. Dalspetstroy, the company managing the Vostochny spaceport project in Russia’s Far East, said on Thursday it will give jobs to about 500 workers of its contractor company TMK (the Pacific Bridge-building Company), which has not been paying wages to its employees for 4 months over financial problems.

Dalspetsstroy PR manager Valeria Timokhova told TASS her company would set up a special division to employ former TMK workers. About a hundred builder would be provided with jobs already by May 1, she said, adding however that some of TMK labourers had opted to stay with TMK hoping for their wages be finally paid.

In all, TMK’s four-month debt to its workers was 96 million roubles (1.8 million U.S. dollars), of which only 15 million roubles (288,900 U.S. dollars) have been repaid.

According to a spokesman for the Primorsky Territory administration, TMK is planning to reduce more than 60% of its workers, with only 150 specialists being employed full-time and 270 more having part-time jobs. As many as 500 out of TMK’s staff of 1,100 have already been given notices of termination. The territorial administration says it can offer jobs to about 4,000 people. Some 100 former TMK workers have already been given jobs at Primavtodor, a road construction company.

TMK is one of the biggest road construction companies in Russia’s Far East. It built a cable-stayed bridge across Zolotoi Rog Bay in Vladivostok for an APEC summit in 2012. In the past several months, the company has been having financial problems. Several criminal cases have been opened against its executives.

Thus, TMK director general Igor Nesterenko was taken into custody on April 21 on charges of fraud and non-payment of wages. He is also suspected of embezzling 55 million roubles (about one million U.S. dollars) in collusion with persons yet unknown to investigators. The company’s former director general, Viktor Grebnev, is facing office abuse charges. On April 20, a Vladivostok district court awarded a bail of one million roubles as a measure of restraint for Grebnev.

Dalspetstroy has filed a one-billion-rouble (19.2 million U.S. dollars) suit against TMK for backlog of works.