Over a hundred workers started a protest action near the 2018 World Cup stadium in Kaliningrad on July 27. The workers demanded to receive their wages that had not been paid for two months and claims totaling nearly 4 million RUB (54,000 EUR).
The subcontractor which officially employed the workers has disappeared, putting the workers in a very difficult situation since they are unable to contact their official employer. Therefore the workers are now demanding their wages from the contractor that had awarded the work to the company that had hired them to do construction work. The workers claim that they will continue their protest action near the stadium until their wages are paid.
The protest action in Kaliningrad is the fifth protest action due to unpaid wages on 2018 World Cup stadiums. In the first half of 2016, four strikes happened on World Cup stadiums in Moscow, Nizhniy Novgorod, Rostov on Don and St-Petersburg.
The BWI believes that it is critical to involve all 2018 World Cup stakeholders, including trade unions to establish appropriate mechanism to guarantee wage payments on time to workers working on projects related to the 2018 World Cup.