The Oil Drum

As Leanan and jjhman have noted, the discontent over profit distributions in the oil business appears to have hit Russia with workers in Surgut, in Siberia, previously praised by President Putin, now complaining about the way that they are being paid.

Under the system, one of the harshest in the oil industry, only 30 percent of wages are fixed. The other 70 percent consists of bonuses that can be taken away at any time, depending on an employee's performance, Zakharkin said by telephone from Surgut on Thursday.

"Low wages, fines and boorish behavior" by managers are the bane of the workers' lives, Zakharkin said, adding that the protests' aim is simply to get a hearing with the company.

Worsening conditions are affecting morale, Zakharkin said. "How will they raise birth rates if people are crestfallen and feeling depressed?" he said, in a reference to the government's plan to combat demographic decline.

At present the article quotes the average salary as being some $630 a month, although they are asking for a 50% raise. This was disputed by a company spokeswoman

"We all want a better salary," said Raisa Khodchenko, a company spokeswoman. "I also want to go the Bahamas and the Caribbean every year."

She said workers' wages were raised by 20 percent in January and would be raised by another 20 percent in October. The fixed part of salaries was 38 percent, not 30 percent as the workers claimed, she said.

The average salary is about 28,000 rubles, ($1,040) per month and workers lost bonuses for good reasons, Khodchenko said.

These salaries are quite a bit less than those being made in the gas fields being developed by Gazprom where salaries up at the edge of the Arctic Circle are significantly higher.